The Evenings and the Mornings

By Ilya Sapozhnikov

This book is an attempt to examine the universal areas related to the human condition in the dynamic of life: the parting from loved ones, the irreversible changes brought about by aging perceived mainly by the bystanders, the consoling power of the memories of childhood, the never-withering desire to be understood and loved, the fears and the hopes for a better tomorrow, and the firm belief that everything that happens to someone is not accidental. These questions come to everybody but are asked loudly, with the hope to reach the souls of the readers by the author of this book. The answers to these eternal questions are always open.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984542335

Book preview

-1-

An old man who actually knows,

But doesn’t believe, that he is old,

And still plays the peekaboo with time,

Walks with two small dogs, white and black, around the block.

His back is straight; his thoughts are sad:

He wants to hold hands with his Mom and Dad

And be comforted by their young voices.

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-2-

Mama, for many years, my first daily telephone call was to you.

If I would not call till eleven, you were worried and called me first.

Nobody is alarmed now by my silence after 11:00 AM,

But we talk to each other through the silence.

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-3-

Late at night, lying in bed in a dark room,

I love to see a crack of light beneath the door.

It immediately brings me back in time

To the safe harbor of childhood.

I see my Mom sitting in the bright light

And preparing for the lessons

She will give tomorrow in school.

I see the green velvet tablecloth with the dark-blue ink stains,

The half-peeled red apple on the plate,

The young and sleepy face of my Mother

Bent over the pages of the textbook.

The illustration on the page shows the Acropolis in Athens or

The mustached portrait of comrade Stalin:

My Mom taught not only the History of the Ancient World but also

The Constitution of the USSR.

Now when the USSR is not more than a history,

The only reality in my dreams is my Mom.

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-4-

I do believe it is true that the Angels are made of human deeds

Because I know When and Where my main Guardian Angel

Has been created.

July 1941, Ukraine, two or three weeks after the War has started,

A truckful of people, fleeing from the Germans,

Moves on a dusty and empty country road.

My cousin and I are trying to divide in all fairness a sunflower

With the still unripe seeds.

Suddenly, all of us hear the already familiar and frightening sound

Of a German bombing aircraft.

The truck stops.

Everybody who is able throws himself or herself on the ground

On either side of the road.

My Dad lingers, helping get down an old man.

The aircraft is almost above our heads.

My Mom pushes me into a shallow ditch,

Prostrates herself over my body,

Stricken by horror

But protecting her child.

At this moment, in the midst of the flashes of fire,

My Guardian Angel has appeared on the Planet.

And now, when my Mom has gone from the Earth,

This Angel, like in the dream of Jacob,

Ascends, carrying my thoughts and my yearning to my