‘My Belarus with cornflowers blooming . . .’
My Belarus with cornflowers blooming,
my land of camomile!
I’m no ‘new Belarusian’ woman,
I cling to ‘older’ style.
Not by broad path, but narrow going
through your fields I wend.
I’m no modern lass, long ago I
breathed in your camomile scent,
I do not measure your ploughlands
to gild my palm, no, not I,
but in the rye gather flowers,
and envy the lark on high
because freely and so sincerely
its song flows the meadows through
and I believe, and feel clearly,
that this is happiness true.
About this poem
This poem, representing Belarus, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.
