- Peter Middleton
As the days now drag into weeks of anguish for Ukraine, I find the world curiously dispassionate. Not only a country, but a people, a culture are being erased. It is not unique in world history, or even our present times, but because it is so close to home and the means of annihilation so intense and indiscriminate, that I find myself reeling in shock. In the middle of the night two weeks ago, I took pen and put to paper my feelings. I attach the poem. that emerged.
It may have resonance.
UKRAINE
This morning I grieve
A family heritage
the treasured cabinet of shared memories
has been desecrated,
shattered,
splintered,
strewn
collapsing into the midnight darkness
a winter's storm.
A cabinet
exquisite and intricate in beauty,
lies broken,
dishonoured
desecrated,
destroyed,
by the flailing fury
of a madman's fantasies.
A legacy of burnished grain
cherished touchstone with generations past,
now gone,
lying
littered
lost
the shards of brittle bellicose tantrums
of one who knew not, and cared not, for history.
A nation's destiny at risk;
as neighbours stood by,
the country waited
anguished
angered
alone
bewildered as to why no one
could help them stop the madman.
A fragment found
amid the snows of desolation,
clutched close to the heart,
a child in a mother's arms:
pathos - nascent hope
promise - devotion
peace- prayer
faith that what has gone, is never truly lost,
despite the depths of darkness.
This morning, I pray for Ukraine
Peter Middleton. March 5, 2022
