Svoboda (Liberty)

Born of the soil
bred to work from daylight to dark
and to never expect
anything more

Loaded into boxcars heading east
to improve their lot, packed with livestock
they travelled on dirty floors of hay covered
where animals slept, ate and shat

farmers of heavy stock, invited
to liberty
their stupid courage stepped off
railway cars filled with promise

to sidewalks steeped
in the memory of Stalin’s labour camps
clerics campaigned to keep dirty
immigrants in their place, cheered

by newspapermen
government officials agreed:
the stalwart peasant in sheepskin coat,
born on the soil, with a stout wife
and a half-dozen children, makes
a first-class scapegoat
family albums parsed by the passage
of time, darkened squares where

black corners once pressed history into place

dialect of misery drawn from its hanging
garden of vowels

born
of the soil and bred to work
from daylight to dark

“Svoboda” was inspired by John Boyko’s telling of the history and mistreatment of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada in his text book Last Steps to Freedom: The Evolution of Canadian Racism.