
Every now and again this little website brings me pleasant surprises in the form of comments and letters from readers. In March, it brought me a shock. The letter from Charlotte Buchen Khadra was lovely, but the news it bore knocked me off balance. “I had a dear dear friend in Berkeley,” she wrote, “who was a Ukrainian Jew from Kyiv, and a poet, engineer, and musician. Unfortunately he died from a brain tumor in September. I wonder if by chance you two were ever in touch? His name was Sergei Skarupo (or sometimes spelled Shkarupo).”
I responded that I had indeed been in touch with Sergei. I didn’t know him at all well, but I had published a story of his in the 2020 volume of Cardinal Points. The last time we’d corresponded was in late June 2021, when he sent me another short story — a novella, actually — that he had just finished, and asked whether I might want it for the next volume of the journal. I told him that, unfortunately, the 2021 volume was already in layout, and that I would be happy to consider the piece in 2022. He responded kindly and wittily: “By that time the novella will be even more finished.”
After I received Charlotte’s note, I searched the internet for details. Sergei passed away on September 9, 2021, at the age of 47, and a service was held at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland a few days later. The tributes on the Chapel’s page filled me with regret. I wish I had had the chance to speak to him, even once, and to hear him play his guitar. I’ll quote one friend’s comment in full:
My husband was a coworker of Sergei’s and for a short but memorable span of months we lived within walking distance of his Berkeley apartment. Sergei quickly became a good friend and a fixture in our social life. I was always a little bit in awe of him — he was so brilliant, a serious person, a complete person, but he was also fun to be around, especially when there was music involved. He was also one of the most gracious hosts I’ve ever met — if you visited his apartment, he couldn’t relax until he’d served you tea and food. I remember eating ice cream in his living room just to satisfy this requirement, and that memory makes me smile.
As Sergei’s cancer progressed, he told us that his experience of music changed dramatically. Music, which had always been a source of pleasure, became ineffably more beautiful, complex, and absorbing. I hope that wherever Sergei is now, he’s close to that music.
I share her hope. Charlotte was good enough to mail me a copy of Sergei’s collection of poems, written in Russian and titled Fire (Ogon’). Published in the last year of his life, it contains 32 lively, imaginative lyrics, beautifully illustrated by the Kharkiv-born artist Asya Livshits. Below is my own tribute to Sergei — a translation of the last poem in the book, with Livshits’s drawing.
Angel
My angel floats on high, hidden behind the clouds,
and gazes at the earth just like a cosmonaut.
He sends me messages — some cryptic and profound,
some simple as can be — yet I can’t make them out.
My star burns bright on high, hidden behind the clouds,
yet it’s so very hard to bid this world goodbye.
As sunshine dries me up and breezes leave me bowed,
I whisper to myself that all of me won’t die:
that I’ll sprout up as grass, come drizzling down as rain,
and, as a furious bee, will give some nose a sting —
will fall as fluffy snow upon a wintry plain
to thaw and overflow as water in the spring.

Ангел
Вдали за облаками летает ангел мой,
Подобно космонавту, глядит на шар земной.
Он шлёт мне сообщенья, но я не слышу их,
Загадочных и важных, понятных и простых.
Вдали за облаками горит моя звезда,
Но с этим миром сложно расстаться навсегда.
На солнце высыхая, сгибаясь на ветру,
Шепчу себе чуть слышно, что весь я не умру:
Я прорасту травой и дождиком прольюсь,
Рассерженной пчелой в случайный нос вопьюсь,
Пушистым белым снегом просыплюсь на луга
И вешнем водою заполню берега.