My mother was Ukrainian. In 1997 I spent two weeks in central Ukraine doing research on Ukrainian feminism and women’s spirituality. I wrote this poem to recognize the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine on Saturday, Feb. 24.
It’s been two years
It’s been two years
two long horrendously agonizing years
seven hundred and thirty days and nights
thousands killed
bodies splintered
hidden beneath snow-covered fields
millions displaced
refugees strewn around the world
lives shattered
you say how can you
a woman of peace
call for the continuation of war
you say it’s got to stop now
no more funds for guns
no more aid to keep it going
beneath the oceans of silent wheat-growing fields
beneath the tons of rubbled homes
beneath the rivers filled with shrapnel
rumble the cries of women and their children
fathers grandparents lovers
old ones whose stories are silenced forever
they say this is not a real country
they say they do not have their own culture
they say they do not deserve to exist
thirty-thousand-year-old sandstone markers
rise above hundreds of caves covered in petroglyphic art
Kamyana Mohyla defies the lies they tell in these days
blue and gold flags skies flowers
incite my heart to a steady unceasing love
for my cellular ancestral heritage
I say my tears strengthen my will for this work
I say l my anger fuels my resistance to hate
I say my poems call out to our hearts to do better
Lmparé (Louise M. Paré)
Ashland
