The Direction of Home

The snow remembers once it was fruit,
steps taken in the direction of home,
stems poked out, embedded ice homed
in a … Read more
The snow remembers once it was fruit,
steps taken in the direction of home,
stems poked out, embedded ice homed
in a … Read more
March wind shudders
against the glass, shattering
sun and shadows of leaves
into moving mosaics on the wood floor.
Outside, the morning breaks,
almost too bright to bear.
It’s Monday. … Read more
We didn’t know if we should be meeting
for breakfast, but there we were,
eating our eggs and toast
with a hefty serving of unease,
the invisible danger lurking… Read more
Ripped from our land,
veins and arteries exposed.
My man must remain,
defend the homeland.
There’s a hole in … Read more
Carried on the back of a generous stranger,
an old woman takes only what she can
hold in her bare hands as they cross
a shaking plank … Read more
endurance
jaw-dropping
frigid… stunned
crushed
escaping
against
all… odds
remarkably
international treaty
disturbed
man’s will
to survive
I don’t know if it’s an accepted poetic form to … Read more
He’s the last man standing.
Whether comedian
or statesman
performance is all
for the last man standing.
Standing in the rubble … Read more
A blast, shattered… Read more
Ukrainian churches are shelters
for the traumatized during Lent 2022.
As neighborhoods are bombed
to rubble, clergy welcome
households to precarious safety,
saviors fulfilling more than liturgical roles.
Fasting … Read more
Blowing soot twists in scrollwork,
over cratered roads,
around splintered edges of a staggering barn.
A windmill rends metal on metal,
screeching above the tenor hum
keening in fence … Read more
In 1967 I hitch-hiked to Belgrade.
My friend and I would take an overnight train
to stay with our Albanian friends
in what is now Kosovo.
Until then we … Read more
The Israeli man I married—and divorced—had parents who were born in Chernivtsi, then in Romania, now in Ukraine. We met on the way to Machu Picchu after he finished … Read more
They come from places you could easily forget,
somewhere between the Pacific and Indian
Oceans: islands where statues gaze at the horizon,
like when the … Read more
You say to the Russian soldier,
Put these seeds in your pockets,
so when you fall on this land,
at least sunflowers will
spring from your body.
Maria Stepanova … Read more