Watch cranes leave in autumn and you understand this poem before you've translated a word of it. Bohdan Lepky's Zhuravli takes that image — birds pulled south, away from home — and makes it the sound of an entire people's leaving.
A brother's question
The poem opens by turning to the listener directly: Do you hear, my brother, my friend, the cranes departing? Written in the early twentieth century, it was set to music by the poet's brother, Lev Lepky, and taken up by the Sich Riflemen. It became the farewell song of Ukrainian emigration — sung at departures, at funerals, and wherever the diaspora gathered far from home.
Why it still lands
Ukraine has spent much of its modern history producing people who had to leave: exiles, émigrés, and now millions displaced by war. Zhuravli gives that experience a shape — the long grey wedge of birds, the sound fading north to south — and lets the homesick recognise themselves in it.
Wear it
Our Zhuravli tee carries the poem in Ukrainian and English with a crane motif. Part of our Poems for Ukraine line — NZ$5 from every shirt is donated.