There are ants and bees we call carpenters,
though they only destroy.
What do they build in their slow undoing
of soft-rotted beams? In their gnawing
toward absence as they consume
these worn-out structures?
Perhaps some things are born just to break
the universe apart, and others to thread it
back together in an act we call balance.
I think we name things to hold them
in place, tether essence to form, as if pinning
butterflies to a board.
But because hummingbirds wings hum
into the throats of trumpet-shaped flowers,
the Earth is as much hummingbird
as it is mountain, as river, as abundance,
as loss.
Perhaps it is named after all it contains—
its ruiners and its makers.
The self is a constellation of opposing
forces. A name is a singular word
for the groupings of disparate sparks
scattered across the cold night, connected
only by distance, named for the builder
and the destroyer, in all of us.
–
Svetlana Litvinchuk is anticipating the release of her debut poetry collection, Navigating the Hallways by Starlight (Fernwood Press, spring 2026) and is the author of a poetry chapbook, Only a Season (Bottlecap Features, 2024). Nominated for Pushcart, Best of the Net, and a finalist for the Slippery Elm Poetry Prize, her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Pleiades, swamp pink, Flyway, About Place, Moon City Review, ANMLY, Lake Effect, Arkana, and elsewhere. She is the Managing Editor of ONLY POEMS and an Editor for Rockvale Review in 2025. Originally from Ukraine, she now tends her garden in Missouri. Find her on Instagram @s.litvinchuk and www.svetlanalitvinchuk.com
© 2025, Svetlana Litvinchuk
Halfway Down the Stairs 