Listening to Jazz on a Saturday Morning After the Invasion of Ukraine

Listening to Jazz on a Saturday Morning After the Invasion of Ukraine

 
 
What hope gives us, I note while making breakfast
Is a palm facing up, a gesture beyond words
Not a course of action, nor to defend against
Lomaya dveri--in Russian--breaking down doors
 
Remember your childhood, how it was possible
To gather fragments into place, order the chaos
To cypher the codes to someday understand it all
And the stars would not blow out in night?
 
Blown into dust, broomed like a mandala by monks
In a drone chant, this hope, scattered as it is
Through woods unknown, to its borders where silhouetted
Trees burst with sticks and leaves thrust into spring
 
That’s all we’ve got: This peculiar hope, the stars and sticks
Listening to jazz on a Saturday morning after the invasion of Ukraine
What can one do but hope about a war, cracking eggs
Being careful of shells and the counter measures?