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

of history and mystery, ages past and runes cast at last

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.