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      March 5, 2022Five Poems for UkraineKim Stafford

      THE HARD PART

      It’s easy to lie, at first.
      People want to believe you.
      And betrayal—a cinch.
      You control the first move.
       
      Killing is so easy, it’s absurd.
      People didn’t see it coming.
      Even war, if you’re the one
      to start it, goes well for awhile.
       
      Sure, people hate you, fear you,
      looking down as they surrender.
      Once you win, for a thin moment
      you enjoy the ornate word: Victory.
       
      It glitters in your hands like dirty gold.
       
       

      SUNFLOWER SEEDS

      How many do you have? Enough
      to line the roads? Enough to give
      to others so they can fill the fields?
      Enough to plant in every bomb crater,
      bullet hole? That would be too many.
       
      If you have just one, one can spiral
      into a thousand in a halo of gold.
      Where will you hide it in the earth
      so every seed may declare peace for
      a survivor’s knees at a brother’s grave?
       
       
       

      TOP HIT

      But comrades, if we kill him, someone will make
      a martyr song and it will become the anthem sung
      by thousands in the streets—first their streets, then
      our own. And if we put them all in prison, they will
      sing it there. And if we send them to Siberia, soon
      it will be our children singing. You can kill a man.
      You can kill thousands. But a song?
       
       
       

      MOTHERS MENDING

      After the tussle—or would you call it
      a clash?—we stitch the torn uniforms
      you men bring home.
      Little needle, glint and glide …
       
      After the cut—or would you call it
      a gash?—we stitch the torn skin
      you men bring in.
      Little needle, glint and glide.
      Lead this thread to heal and hide …
       
      After the war—or should we call it
      murder—we stitch the shrouds
      you men wear now.
      Little needle, glint and glide.
      Lead this thread to heal and hide.
      Never ask us to explain
      why you left us here in pain.
       
       
       

      CALLING HOME

      How can we kill them—they look like us.
      —soldier in Ukraine

      An old man, who limped like uncle Alexi, stumbled,
      and we shot him. He had a gun, yes, but he wore a cap
      like the one you knit for me. One wore a coat like father’s,
      he tumbled off a bridge into the river. When I shot one running
      into the forest, his hands flew up like brother Oleg, twitching.
      I remember grandfather Sasha shouting when he was disturbed
      too early, before his tea. Here a greybeard shouted as we passed,
      and my commander shot him on his doorstep. One my age, when
      he was hit, cried out “Arina!” Who will have to tell her? If I die,
      who will tell you? I can’t sleep. I see these faces everywhere.
      When my gun is cold, I am afraid. When it is hot, I am ashamed.
      What will happen to children here, like our Slava, Vasyl, Ksenia?
      And if I live, after I have a hero’s welcome, tell me, mother,
      after you hold me in your arms, what will happen to me?

      from Poets Respond

      Kim Stafford

      “This topic has command of my daily writing practice. When one leader accuses another of lying, as a poet I’m startled awake to the importance of fugitive truth, vulnerable trust, the fragile treasure of honorable communication—and I vow again to seek some way to tell truth through poetry. When I read about sunflowers being carried as symbols of Ukrainian solidarity in demonstrations around the world, I wanted our poems to live like that: seeds in the mind to grow into peace. When I read about Ukranian mothers sewing their children’s names and blood type onto children’s clothes, I start to think of other kinds of sewing they will need to do As a poet, I’m often asked ‘What can poetry do in such a time?’ Then I hear about people singing in war time to empower their spirits, and I’m moved to try, again, to see what a poem, a little song, could do. In the terrors of the current war in Ukraine, the idea of a soldier on the battlefield calling his mother at home struck me to the heart. What would he say, and what could he ask of her?”

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