The Horror

A poem captures the horror of what is happening in Ukraine

Michael and I were the two presenters last week on a Yale Class of ’60 zoom forum on Ukraine.  He concluded his presentation with the following poem:

Mariupol

A city park of blasted trees,

rubble, stones, and bricks, and plaster,

buildings windowless and leaning,

and papers blown all around.

What words are written on those shreds,

and where are those who wrote them down?

What is the fate of innocents

now trapped in bombed out ruined homes?

The crying woman on the floor

at the railroad station in Lviv

holds her child close in her arms,

but mourns two babies dead at home.

Her hero husband stayed behind

to fight in Mariupol streets,

perhaps to die a soldier’s death,

leaving her to carry on.

Her stricken eyes now stare at horror,

demanding that we look in them

and see the price that she has paid,

then give support to brave Ukraine.

Michael Tappan   March 22, 2022

There is little I can add except to emphasize the limitations of what we see and hear on our “magic windows,” repeated viewing of anguished commentators, retired generals and tragic images. 

All placed within frames.  Separated from us, and hard to hold apart from similar viewings of explosions on imagined planets with superheroes surviving the chaos.

A poem can offer the immediacy missing from our segmented and scripted experiences of the world.  Whether the boy who dies is Russian or Ukrainian, a mother’s heart is broken.