(For the people of Ukraine)
Today, we stare at the architecture of war,
how core and studs crumble and quake
after an explosion. It seems we have lost,
the ways we look at our humanity,
forgotten how to connect with wildflowers
if we don’t own them. I peek, as I can,
from my screen into the blown-out
buildings to try to uncover something deeper
about this attack, to understand
the appeal of killing another human,
of taking of their cups and saucers,
their quilts, their children, their shoes,
their photos. We can chalk it all up
to power, but it seems like we’re making it
okay again to lose lives, to invade
a country, a people, to steal a place.
The humanness that spills
from the mounting bloody rubble
of war is stuck between tanks and guns.
The couches, baby toys, wooden tables
where families sat to share a meal,
a daily routine, toasts, and memories
left behind to the bombing of humanity,
the grotesque secret of us revealed.
The unsacred sacrilege of murder
that war calls for, sketch of bravado
or terror until collapse;
the tallest bombed buildings of homes
speak first with their height,
then with a stumble in the wind.
-Liza Wolff-Francis
Saturday's Sirens 