Face to face talks held in Antalya, Turkey yesterday between Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba brought no progress towards achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine. Peace was not on Mr Lavrov's agenda, instead he made a diatribe against the West.
My eldest son, a poet, is writing a daily poem about the inhumane actions that are taking place in the Ukraine. This is his poem from yesterday.
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If I say that time rolls forward Mr. Lavrov you will contradict my pathetic fallacy and tell me that time always runs backwards.
At which moment, I will imagine all Ukrainians walking backwards to freedom, out of the jaws of death, to their former joyous days
of making babies, shooting tiktok videos, adjusting nuclear reactors, improving their agricultural yields and their guided tours of Kyiv.
However, Mr. Lavrov, you are mistaken, for half-a-million people are cut-off in Mariupol
where dead bodies lie in the streets and your people have dropped a large bomb on a Maternity hospital.
The one running backwards in time,
Mr. Lavrov, is you
a spokesman for poorly-disguised tsarist ambition.
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How poignant his poem is! As well as a situation right out of the (I was going to say 50s, but more like the 1850s!) Unfortunately we all see everything on nightly news. The dictatorial thrust by Russia is not going to end well. And all my visions are focused on making peace.
ReplyDeleteDearest Rosemary,
ReplyDeleteIt is rather easy to write a poem, or part of it, in the anonymity and the luxury of a sheltered life far away from unthinkable atrocities...
May God help us all!
Hugs,
Mariette
Outstanding poem and so true, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteHeartbreaking, what is happening, the whole World is moved.
ReplyDeleteHeart-breakingly true. Thank your son for his poem.
ReplyDeleteWell written.
ReplyDeleteThere is a special reserved spot in hell for Putin and his cabal of kleptocrats.
I am not quite sure what engenders a particularly snarky comment above, but it seems totally unwarranted. May I join with others, Rosemary, in congratulating your son on a sensitive treatment of the situation faced by innocent Ukrainians, and it puzzles me that one has to be directly involved in the conflict to write about it. Based on that premise, much past literature, would never have been written.
ReplyDeleteI too find that comment confusing David.
DeleteYour son has done an amazing job writing the poem - It's a pity Mr Lavrov probably won't read it.
ReplyDeleteThe flowers at the top of your post represent a healthy, thriving life. In war, colour and floral decoration fade away :(
ReplyDeleteLove that poem and words your son written...so strong! This war is so crazy. Totally crazy...
ReplyDeleteLove & peace from Titti
Dear Rosemary, I am sad and aghast as all of us about what happens at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that it is good to put into words what we are thinking, or, as in poems, what we are feeling.
I never heard that you must be in the eye of a tornado to write about it - we are happy that, at the moment at least, we are not - but we are allowed to write or speak or draw. And I am glad that we are free and gifted to do that. Britta
💚
DeleteGood poem. Part of me wishes that the Ukraine gets more help with weapons smuggled in from the west, planes, larger anti tank guns, etc to even up the odds but then that might lead to Russia using more severe firepower to retaliate as the Kremlin seems determined to grab it back under Russian control. Given human history of almost continual warfare since the Stone Age there doesn't seem to be much hope for fixing climate change as there always seems to be something else happening in the world to shift attention away from that.
ReplyDeleteDear Rosemary, your son is a fine poet, expressing beautifully thoughts which tumble in our minds these days, watching the horror unfold. I think of the Ukraine every day, and the scenes of mothers walking many miles pushing baby strollers breaks my heart. Many of us are contributing to Red Cross and other organisations helping the many refugees fleeing this tragedy. Thank you for sharing this poem and the special yellow/blue flower posy.
ReplyDelete