The insatiable thirst for power and control always seems to end in abuse or assault, whether on a small or large scale. A poem for Ukraine…

Dear Ukraine.
Watching you being invaded
is haunting and spirit-breaking,
as many know what it’s like
to be an innocent person
assaulted and abused.
And, now, we see this
on the scale of a whole nation–
the kind of invasion we hoped
would be in the dustbin of history.
You didn’t ask for war,
or provoke, or tempt, or court conflict.
You simply existed, free, and sovereign.
You were independent,
too close to an abuser,
too near a vacuum of human empathy.
And now, you’re raising arms
to merely stay alive–to defend yourself,
to not go quietly into the depth
of fear and death.
So, while you rise-up,
everyone who has shed a tear,
and all of us who have bruised spirits,
and hearts with scars,
will raise you up in solidarity.
And for your families, your men,
your women, your tiny babies,
your sick, your old,
for the full-of-life dream-filled people
huddled on the cold, bare floors in bomb shelters, for your torn buildings and homes, for your streets that have become
escape routes to the nearest border,
the world wishes an outpouring of love,
and sadness, and outrage, and peace,
and the will to rise up now, and again and again.
Most sincerely, the rest of the free world.

Diana Poulos-Lutz
Mineola