||| FROM JOELLEN MOLDOFF, ET. AL |||

In a recent essay in the NY Times, “Poems in a Time of Crisis”  by Ilya Kaminsky, a Ukrainian American poet, concluded:  “I ask how I can help. Finally, an older friend, a lifelong journalist, writes back: “Putins come and go. If you want to help, send us some poems and essays. We are putting together a literary magazine.”

In the middle of war, he is asking for poems.(https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/opinion/ukraine-odessa-poems.html)

“…I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.”  ~ Albert Camus
In response to the war in Ukraine, several Orcas poets would like to share their poems.

Magnolia Buds
Ed Wilson

Though spring is all around me and magnolia buds 
are about to burst into blossom,
I cannot bring myself to write about them now,
not when my television screen is frozen on an image
of a Ukrainian mother and her two children
lying dead on their sides, each stilled in mid-stride,
a backpack, a suitcase and a few belongings
scattered around them, objects likely gathered
as they fled their home to escape bombardment,
rushing across a battered bridge and then onto this
open, paved intersection at the very edge of Kyiv
where they reached the spot on which they now lie,
at precisely the same moment a Russian mortar shell
slammed into the pavement and exploded, unfurling
a hideous cloud of concrete dust and shrapnel, and 
hurling razor-sharp fragments of metal in all directions, 
and into every living being within its reach. 
No, I cannot write about magnolia buds this spring.
Ukraine
Zona McKenzie
dance for opening
lotus blossom blooms in mud

rain clears blue cloud tears

Kathy Huberland
Poetry  is too sweet an expression to clothe it in words
of war and hate
My sadness exceeds the soft words I would need
and my brain pulses with words of revenge that will
never rhyme
I sit with tears in my eyes and recall the day when I was 12
and found out my mother had just died
I ran outside and screamed to the sky, Why God Why !
I did not know then I’d be asking this for the rest of my life
My thoughts stream to those people overseas in that
far county……my tears, their tears
I close my notebook

This photograph from the Washington Post triggered the following two poems.

Sandora Hedrick

I am muted still

      time blankets the bloom dark

pushing against my soil

 Photograph From Odessa, March 2022 
JoEllen Moldoff  
Her eyes telegraph
“I’m an old lady. 
I cannot leave Odessa.”
Her hands pray 
as if she still believes
in a god somewhere.
But her heart knows the truth—
she must remain here
in this room embraced 
by photographs
of her long ago family.
Gone 
to the shore of no more
suffering.
Vernal Equinox
Nita Couchman, 3/20/22
equal night and day
everywhere on the planet
resetting the scales of time
on which day will we
reset the balance of peace?
Anji Ringzin
at the gas station with nukes
the one with feral eyes
drinks the three poisons
(- Someone of the news referred   to Russia as “The Gas Station with Nukes”.
– Mitt Romney described Putin’s eyes as feral.
– Buddhism often describes the fires of greed, hatred and stupidity as three poisons.)
History in a Cardboard Box
Ukraine – Past and Present
Chaya Rosen  March 18 2022
It’s not just that I’m watching your war
your war is watching me – remember.Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles 
a do-si-do dance of soldiers and tanks

each one passed the killing to the other.

Right side, left side, back-to-back. 
In the shadows the past 
skirts its movements, 
while the present continues confused. 

I am obsessed with memory 
Yours and mine 
I am twisted and tied 
by the ropes of slaughter. 

The killed vowed to leave us their memory
the killers packed their history 
in a cardboard box  
hiding their sins from their sons.
If you’re not careful I cried
You may develop historical dementia. 

It’s a short rope 
that coiled and recoiled a skin scab 
of mandates and orders 
Babi Yar is now eighty years old.

The ravine near Kiev swelled in the forest 
with forty thousand Jews 
innocent men women screaming 
babies annihilated in two days. 

You should have written it down 
detailed the death 
guarded the truth 
Recounting it to your children and your children’s children. 

Short ropes can be useful 
its threads forget the frazzled facts.

Pulled by her hair she ran 
bloodied between her legs. 
as your ravage abandoned its rights to the light
while your past smacked its lips saying: We didn’t know 
We didn’t see 
We didn’t smell 
We weren’t there. The filth of your fingers  can’t be washed by the tears of these years 
Paralyzed the trees still stand there in Babi Yar
forest footsteps witnessing your conflict of memory: The Germans did it 
The Soviets erased it 
Ukraine obliterated My names. 
Let’s move beyond the disorder
weave longer ropes 
inter-twine the stories
guard reality. 
Don’t give into historical swindlers 
invented heroes 
one-dimensional victims. 

Men with faces weathered leather lies 
women covered by a scarf
its knot your past it tied. 

Let’s renew and toast to freedom
while we watch over the vodka 
looming from the fuzzy haze.

Human Tragedy
Bruce Hanna  3.20.22
How — Why
We human animals
Capable of logic
of feeling love deeply
Compassionate
Empathetic to friends
when Egos are fed
Feelings not hurt
Yet Shame, Competition
Greed Narcissism
Threats, Conflict too often
lead to Enemies, Aggression 
We the Story Tellers
Conjure Heroes and Monsters
Capable of knowing
the impact of our actions
Nevertheless at times we
Express the worst
of the animal kingdom
Knowingly attacking destroying
To get what our neurotic self-state
Imagines we want or need —
It tries the imagination
Sickens the heart
War Again 
even though 
we know there are no winners
Only pain death regret
Evolution gave us the ability
To react instantly to threat
We are mostly emotional
Slow to engage our logic
A pity, a tragedy
Each who commands War
Should have to Give Birth
before killing others’ babies 
Spend a night
In the beauty of Nature
Calmly asking
Is this they only Way Forward?
About Face 
Carla Stanley 2022 
Less they are    no more 
disappeared   blown up   disintegrated   in war 
not from   long life   not from   outliving family, husband or wife 
no one wears the shoes   burned up   at the door 
no one sleeps in the beds   splintered   in pieces broken    on the floor 
no one enters this home   
crumbled   ruined   pulled apart   alone 
one mans right   to leave nothing left 
has made the world stop in its tracks 
and wonder leftright leftright left right right left
no one will come    there’s nothing to get

Late Night Walk, Worm Moon, Just before Spring Equinox
B. Sadie Bailey 3-18-22

a quiet soft stillness breathes this moonlit night,
a silence you can hear;
stars sing
music of the spheres.
my old cat pads ahead on sure, noiseless feet;
his black back, his dark-light stripes,
perfect camouflage.
equal length of day, night;
poised on fulcrum’s single point,
an atom’s space
between extremes –
everything pauses; hung
like that full moon.
another war again; another breach.
two enemies face to fight – pawns
in some machinated game of kings;
promises strewn like landmines.
warlords swivel warheads’ deadly aim.
razor’s-edge cuts tightrope-walkers’ feet;
so thin the wire –
no umbrella for balance
nor net to catch
a fall.
this historic moment – tensed pause in time,
our collective breath held;
glaciers in our chests –
any mindless mad stumble
can tip the axis
just like
that.
how do we cease this war,
let mere men save face,
and spare our planet?
all things alive
want

life

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