Ukraine is a Woman
like an infinite field of sunflowers, brighter than the sun,
memory made and recollected, unexpected reflections
that glisten as you listen to the silence, the gentle violence
to predict the future and redefine the past,
echoes of Shevchenko off the mountains invoked.
predestiny as a mockery of the clockwork impatience
that drips blood and tear and sweat, wet with awakenings
that break the unmourned mornings that suggest the blessed
in tested testaments and the remnants of our invocations
paid as reparations for mad dictators and faithless lovers
that are only here for the hryvnia in the barters.
souls flying in the shadows lying when there is a multitude
of angels angling for the corners in the cathedrals of thought,
taught to the daughters left to weep in the aftermath of wars
fought for grain and territory, the Kiev-Chernigov, Galician,
and Volhynian edifices torn down to break wills and kill
the innocents to prove virtues of beasts over priests.
the feminine endures, as it must, the winged victory of hope
and resilience. the virulence of lies and the smell of sacrifice
does not purify, does not deny, no matter how hard we try
to rise above the arduous denials of the yesterdays, in glory
she resists and persists against every cruelty avenged, lessons
taught to the children to make mortar for the walls of cathedrals.
William F. DeVault. 2024. all rights reserved.
