RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: PUTIN'S RUSSIA
Darya
Darya
Kozyreva is nineteen
She
loves poetry and yearns for freedom
Darya
Kozyreva will spend three years
in
the gulag for poetic dissidence
She
pasted a verse from a Ukrainian poet *
on
his statue in St Petersburg Square:
O
bury me, then rise ye up
And
break your heavy chains
And
water with the tyrant’s blood
The
freedom you have gained
It
did not use the tyrant’s name
It
did not need to
It
didn’t mention the war in Ukraine
It
was self-evident
Darya
Kozyreva was a known dissident
Now
she is a known hero
She
valued truth over her own freedom
She
felt the suffering of her Ukrainian friends
She
refused to remain silent
She
is one of hundreds in Russian jails
For
speaking out against their president
For
speaking out against his dirty war
In
America we do not imprison dissidents
We
detain and deport foreign students
For
writing anti-Israeli editorials
In
America we find more creative ways
to
punish those who criticize the president
and
his oppressive policies
We
are not Russia but we are on the path
that
Putin laid out before us
where
dissent is outlawed
and
public protest is treason
where
even listening to an opposing view
is
a punishable offense
*
Taras Shevchenko
