Walking with the sun in my eyes

· by · in dVerse, poetry, Synchronicity. ·

When morning’s broken, sun in eyes
I walk with birdsong in my chest
mourning

for the sleep’s that lost to air raids
forcing children into basements
waiting

for the blast to blow their future
into charcoal ash and mass graves
filling.

I wood-walk just to let the nightmares
peter out, from hurt to soreness
throbbing

in the kept phantom pains; remembrance
of what’s broken, what’s sacrificed
to lies

of heroism in cluster bombs
to letters, signs, and uniforms
when birds

keeps singing, oblivious to pain
I see beyond this warfare peace
a sign

of daylight drawing darkness out
as despots die, eternally
condemned

Bombardment
Philip Guston

Today at dVerse Grace introduced us to the form of Synchronicity. The war in Ukraine has now been going on for a month, and I think I will remember that shocking morning of February 24 until I die.

March 24, 2022

16 responses to “Walking with the sun in my eyes”

  1. This is incredibly potent, Bjorn! I especially resonate with; “I wood-walk just to let the nightmares peter out, from hurt to soreness throbbing.”

  2. Just so powerfjl. More thsn protest poetry, far more than emotion and commentary…really verse like this is substance defined.

    In the areas occupied by Russian troops they are going into libraries and homes, grabbing books by Ukrainian authors (they actually have a list) and are burning them. Of course this is not the worst horror we have seen, but it is shocking and numbing…there is ethnic cleansing happening — including the refugees they force out…

  3. I have been following the news too and I can see that broken morning, the crying and deaths from bombs into mass graves. I admire the turn of your lines from deadly nightmares, to birds singing, to signs of peace and the finally the death of despots. I pray that someday, all the tyrants will die, eternally condemned.

  4. Love the alliteration “daylight drawing darkness out as despots die”. A very strong message, which fits snugly into the topical; good stuff.

  8. Your poem resonates deeply … my response to it … a sense of awe at your talent to write so beautifully about such an atrocious, senseless act of war.

  12. I think you have captured the disconnect between our lives and those in Ukraine far better than I did. Especially,

    for the sleep’s that lost to air raids
    forcing children into basements
    waiting

    for the blast to blow their future
    into charcoal ash and mass graves
    filling.

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