Season's Whisper
(A Quadrille)
Birds falter
from the sky. Kapitans cry.
Bodies lie,
blind eyes on streets
rubbed down to bone.
Still
the season whispers.
Living wings fly,
buds swell like grief unbound.
The wilding wind
knows nothing
of our long drown.
The season whispers.
Life is found.
April 2022
posted for dVerse Poets:
and
for earthweals' weekly challenge:
Note: "..Kapitan is a commissioned officer rank ..in..the NATO officers rank system..[adopted by Ukraine,]used to
specify commanding officers of company-sized units..."~wikipedia
Images:Detail of Scene in Bucha, Ukraine, April 2, 2022 after Russian retreat, ©Reuters/Zohra Bemsemra, cropped to sepia, Fair Use
Magnolia buds against March tree canopy, 2016, © joyannjones
"The season whispers." I am feeling this conundrum, too - atrocities happening, while springtime buds open.........beautifully expressed.
ReplyDeleteIn spite of what mankind does to one another and to the earth, the earth will endure but indeed, we will not. So much sadness.
ReplyDeleteLife will find a way, as Mr. Goldblum has opined. Despite all of our violence, cruelty, heedlessness, greed, short-sightedness and sheer global-scale jackassery, life finds a way. I don't know whether that make me feel happy or disgusted--both, probably.
ReplyDeleteWhispering may seem an odd choice when writing about something as bombastic as war, but it absolutely works here, because nature (or timeless things, if you will) do not subscribe to human noise bit to their own much more subtle wavelength.
DeleteThe chills running thru my body as I sat here reading this ~ all too real. Beautifully crafted, Joy and thanks for leaving me a comment.
ReplyDeleteSeasons will continue, we will finish ourselves. This makes my heart ache.
ReplyDeleteI have always found that nature has its way of being relentless, sometimes mocking but often consoling our grief... great writing
ReplyDeleteBirds falter...that is such a powerful image. You take the world's grief and find the seeds that grow regardless of what humans do.
ReplyDeleteJoy this Spring, "buds swell like grief unbound." Life and death interlocked this season in a haunting fashion. The grim determination some have to destroy gets overwhelming. A very powerful setting you have painted in your Q.
ReplyDeletewhispers make one lean in... and the impact is all the greater ~
ReplyDeleteWinters are hard in Ukraine if you go on the visual evidence, and early springs looks raw and brown with the bodies and tank treads. That ambience is umbered thickly here; but the eye drifts to the real world where life goes on as it must and will. You nailed so much in 44. Great title.
ReplyDelete"Living wings fly."
ReplyDeleteIt does seem a strange juxtaposition to witness such wanton brutality at the onset of spring.
ReplyDeleteThese are such extreme times. Your poem captures the profound moment when it seems all life hangs in the balance. I love the picture of the flower blooming at the end. Suzanne - Mapping Uncertainty
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and visceral and true.
ReplyDelete"The wilding wind
ReplyDeleteknows nothing
of our long drown."
This is beautiful, Joy. I love the empathy in your writing.
Thanks, Sunra--that actually is my own favorite line form this. Sorry to be late getting it out;sometimes I forget I have blog moderation on after three days, because for years I never used it, but there is just too much obnoxiousness out there and too many bots any more. Thanks so much for coming by and commenting.
Deletewell said Joy. i hate seeing this happen, i hate seeing this kind aggression. democracy is under attack around the world, not just here, and we can give a inch. so much death, its hard to watch.
ReplyDelete