a polite war...

It was quiet and well-mannered
as human destruction goes, non-intrusive;
the world goes on with little notice
of the lives sown like ripe seasons, and seeds
find fertile moments in the barren soil of world concern
where nations pose like vain children
with cameras on a stick.

A community of nations
watch as one bleeds its life
lonely, and suffering quietly
in the limn light, slightly off
the center stage, where the stars
shine inward and the set stays dark.

Such a polite devastation
so many thousands
and war fails to count the important things;
it is not about the heroes, they bring war home
but are not the cause. No,
war does not count the important things
like the rich that get richer, and the poor
that vanish, and the dreams
trapped in fresh mounds of native soil,
and bound in arrested histories.
Such a polite situation, fate of a hopeful nation
evaporates in fictional news copy.

In all the world, all the outrage, pauses
to reflect, the sounds of boots still distant
and neither does the past insist, for
it too was a polite war.

her finest fur

the woman wore fur
green like cedar and
long like soft pine and spruce
it would blend with the season
where summer spawns layers
beneath the canopy

I watched her make
the splendid garment, and she
made sure of every stitch, tied with green
into deeper green, and the drape was exact
on limbs, as  these evergreen covers
move from living limbs to limbs she would
forever keep among the living.

When done, she undrapes and
the fur coat falls at her feet; smiling,
she retrieves it and hands it away

A gift to a man, heading back to the front
for a hero of Donetsk, she wears and then un-bears
her favorite lush fir; it may save him
as he tries to save his country.


______________________________
I watched a woman make a camouflage suit for her husband; a soldier' in the Ukraine army. He will wear this to cover himself, and he will wear this fir coat as he fights for his nation's future.  Amidst the swarm of charges and counter charges- as Russia tries to cover-up its naked military aggression-  the propaganda of its corrupt politics of greed and vengeance fills the news media.  In the invasion, many thousands of innocent people suffer. Many brave young men and women in Ukraine risk all. So meaningful then, the fir coat.

Kyiv - a chapter falls

There is fire in the ice,
as if made to still, the gleam
of a more distant sun pales
against the eye's-own anger
and the heart's rush of heat.

There is fire in the icy breath
as if dragons and beasts of fury,
that crowd the mind's theater,
act out upon a glossy stage;
so much rage displayed for consumption
of a greater beast, the global feast
upon sudden misery.

[Democracy has a messy birth]

It is in the waning hours of each day,
the play unwinds; a chapter falls,
and winds of change carry
a stench of burnt tires.

For some it is a whiff of a window
from west into the west, to others a stain
upon a treasure- and Kyiv can bleed,
hot defiant blood, for change is also...
a fire, in the ice.