From The Paris Review:
“Buried in a human neck, a bullet looks like an eye, sewn in, / an eye looking back at one’s fate.” So writes the Russian-language Ukrainian poet Ludmila Khersonsky, born in Odessa. Now, President Putin claims he is sending troops to Ukraine in order to protect Russian speakers. What does Ludmila think about Putin?
A small gray person cancels
this twenty-first century,
adjusts his country’s clocks
for the winter war.
Putin is sending troops, and the West is watching as Ukrainian soldiers, and even just young civilians, take up guns in the streets to oppose him. There is no one else to help them. I’m rereading Ludmila:
The whole soldier doesn’t suffer—
it’s just the legs, the arms,
just blowing snow
just meager rain.
The whole soldier shrugs off hurt—
it’s just missile systems …
Just thunder, lightning,
just dreadful losses,
just the day with a dented helmet,
just God, who doesn’t protect.
Link to the rest at The Paris Review