When you can

If you could, you would
feed the birds of Kyiv, of
Mariupol, the pipits and larks,
the warblers and wagtails

lost in the suffocating
skies over scorched
trees in which they
once slept and nested.

If you could, you would
shelter the martens and voles,
the hares and dormice
who fled cratered homes,

the incendiary cant,
the stink and plunder
of war. You would bless
the dead, every small,

ruined creature who
will never be counted.

When you can, you will
feed honeybees arrived
too early for the first
blossom, or too late

for the last, confused
by the Earth’s febrile
pitch and shudder.
When you can,

you will offer sugar water,
praise the fuzz on each
striped body, the fragile
geometry of delicate wings.

You will count every little
life, pray each through
the burning days,
the coming nights.

 

.

 

Advertisement

Tags: bees, creative writing, destruction, global warming, kindness, Kyiv, Mariupol, nature, poem, poetry, seeing, spirituality, Ukraine, war, wildlife