On Facebook, I Am Asked to Write a Poem about Peace for an International Anthology
No one asks you to write a poem about peace
until it is a time of war. Then,
visions of peacetime — fields of flowers,
bustling cities, food in the shops, safety —
will show we are united, together in this.
And yet, no one is more alone
than the family in the Kyiv parking garage,
the children hearing their mother cry out
when they emerged for breakfast and saw
the building next door had been bombed.
No one, more alone
than the old man holding a gun,
an AK-47, for the first time
in his long life, to stand in the street
and fire at tanks and Russian soldiers.
This is defense: men going out at night
to find signs in the streets, places
prepared with paint as guides for missiles.
To use their feet to push dirt over the site.
To change the street signs, to misdirect.
And because it is Europe, because
of the parking garages and streetcars,
we feel it deeply, we mourn, we dress
in blue and yellow and light our buildings
and bridges in solidarity, solidarity!
We would rush to the border of Poland
to make sandwiches and bring blankets, see
who we could take in, the women and children.
We would if we could. I send money.
I am always just sending money for food.
Maybe it makes the fighters feel less alone,
the yellow-and-blue-lit buildings,
the branded social media photos,
the poems for peace. They are an attempt
to say, at least, we see you.
To say there is still a world
of safety, of fields with flowers,
freedom and self-determination,
and though I’ve never seen a dove
with an olive branch in its mouth,
there is such a thing as peace.
