For many of us, having war at our doorstep is quite literally a foreign idea. We can only imagine based off what we see and hear from across the shrinking globe. Although I cannot put myself in a Ukrainian’s shoes, I can will myself to imagine…to grasp even a strip of shadow of what it might be like. Regardless, it is not hard to see war’s destructive arm and the hate wielding it. May Ukraine remain a free nation and may the sunflowers in the steppe bloom in free air. I am sad that a war was the impetus for me to learn about the rich culture and beautiful people. Kyrie eleison.
how is it
that the smoke of thousands
of miles across the arc of the earth
can choke our senses
many of us have not known
what it is to peek around a corner and count
who we can see down, within, beneath
hot steel and crushing stone
we know loss, though
and fear that binds our bones
heaving anger and despair out thin lips
to escape the reach of our souls
it is a ripping, blasting thing
war, that dark device of shaping and scraping
lives from lives and flowers from fields
and distant tears from lifted eyes
and to push against it
flower in a barrel, flag on a tank
open doors for ones pushed out
to rise from ruin and say, “No more”
a heart yearns for a sunflower dancing
in an endless steppe, an expanse of hope
against the brightest blue
and a fleeting whisp of gray
a tilting of air 