And they too sing. Delighted by skyscrapers rising, and neon lights that flicker over their heads. But the wagons are closing in. Scissoring the blank spaces, in two. Fear and blood will soon follow.
When younger, there was a girl for me – who became a bird. She flew the troubled sky, in simple-minded joy. Leaving my heart parched. Now, alone – I hold the stings of pain. But I still remember, her living sky at wake. And snowflakes, dancing on her grave.
The streets awash with blood and tyranny. Sorrow glazing the eyes of the stray dogs. Yet, that steady courage will win. Could we, if life lasts – do better?
I am learning the language of distances. The one that is casual about bodies without skin, and lack of self-control. But I have not yet lived, beyond the wisdoms of every age. And my father taught me, to nurse the deadness in the skies. Feeling the weave of pain and suffering against my skin. And I can still here the echoes……
In the chill rain of early spring, bones rot in the streets. The losses are always personal. But the people, rise through the clatter. A landscape of ancestral hope. They will not vanish into the burnt soil. But scoop the earth, and cry ‘Slava Ukraini!’ And the lights rise, building on building. A glory of yellow and blue, for all the world to see.
They fall. In the schools. In the hospitals. In the train stations. Destroyed and destroyed. Silent and still lay the children. Nothing but memories remain. A mother calls for her baby: ‘Where is she?’
I am not one for weapons. Or those those orange detonations, that are beyond good and evil. I much prefer the passing clouds, that free me to perform. And those great roots of night, growing below our loving silence
The crying boy sees his mother. Cold and lifeless on the street corner. There are no body bags here. Babies are buried, in graves of rubble. No need to explain what that means. …..” So, how are you today?”
A Wandering Poet 