Among the shaded trees at Peremohy Avenue,

Pushkin stretches out his gaze and hand

to the Ukrainian people, his words of freedom clear

for everyone,

Hatred of spray-painted graffiti on his sculpture

by the vandals does not bother him,

The great poet rises above the hordes in Kiev,

The word “Demolish” by Ukrainian authorities

does not wound him,

His words are immortal and their rhetoric is nothing

but dust along the streets and gutters of Kiev,

The bronze statue of the poet is like his crafted

poem of the Bronze Horseman,

Alive and enduring.

As the Russian poet wrote in Ode to Freedom---

“Let me Sing to the world of Liberty

And shame the scum that sit on thrones”,

Pushkin is a soldier of all cultures in their greatness,

The tyrants of Kiev fear him during their flagrant war

across the mud and fields of Ukraine.

It is May and the war goes on,

Life and courage echo in the Russian poet’s words,

Amid the air-raid sirens blaring in Kiev.