When it’s over

If we make it through December
through the blackouts from a failing
power grid, through bombardments
and the drinking water trapped
under ice, when we can forget
the scavengers,
the neighbor-looters
the pilfering rapists
the hounds of winter,
the reek of corpses,
hastily buried
when they cowardly left in the dead of night
if we make it through the winter things,
the cold weather blues of living under siege
without another Holodomor
in the spring sometime, we may
let it go and many years from now
remember only our hatred
and the roses in the snow.

Starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933. In *Famine in the Soviet Ukraine, 1932–1933: a memorial exhibition, Widener Library, Harvard University*. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986. Procyk, Oksana. Heretz, Leonid. Mace, James E. (James Earnest). ISBN: 0674294262. Page 35. Initially, published in *Muss Russland Hungern?* [Must Russia Starve?], published by Wilhelm Braumüller, Wien [Vienna] 1935.

Today we are giving a list of song titles of winter and December by Lilian at dVerse to incorporate into a poem of our own. If you have Spotify I have created the playlist for all the songs below.

Don’t forget that we will have our last live event on Thursday at 3 PM EST where you can hang out, read your own poem or just listen.

December 6, 2022

26 responses to “When it’s over”

What an amazing poem, Bjorn. There is no doubt, for some it is much much harder to make it through the dark of winter…metaphorically or in reality.
*Thanks for putting up the spotify!

Björn Rudberg (brudberg) December 6, 2022 at 22:16 · · Reply →

Thank you… it was fun trying to embed a playlist…

This is absolutely stellar writing, Bjorn! The darkness of winter is so palpable in your words. I especially like; “if we make it through the winter things, the cold weather blues of living under siege without another Holodomor
in the spring sometime.” 💙💙

So much horror in the world. Nothing changes 😞

Absolutely, Bjorn — A candle of vigil to accompany this hard winter’s night of a war creeping across jukeboxes in Europe. World citizens learn in this latter age to avert their gaze from the difficult, something which only casts a baleful eye on ourselves.

Björn Rudberg (brudberg) December 7, 2022 at 10:38 · · Reply →

Indeed… we are already numb from all the terrible things happening.

Profound thoughts of winter war and rage.
Much💜love

Wow! you really took us to the devastation of war in Ukraine. Such a great use of the prompt titles.

Difficult to feel safe and comfortable without some measure of guilt when I think about the innocent humans in Ukraine being forced to suffer and die yet again because of a Russian maniac.

Cold, hard truth so eloquently rendered. The song titles slipped in so discreetly.

Powerful piece.

A dark winter poem and one wonders who will make it through December.

I love the compiled playlist – let the winter songs echo through the universe.

The roses in the snow. Oh, that’s a beautiful image.

Blown away, sad and fantastic writing

The last few lines are stirring… wonderfully written.

Wow, Bjorn, that’s so bitterly cold. A reminder that winter is a dark and dangerous time for so many people.

You bring out the horrors and darkness of winter so powerfully. The war and the ravages caused by it, further darken the darkness.

Thanks for the playlist.

Björn, this is fantastic ❤

~David

Well done! I adore how we all use the same words and fashion a landscape unique! Yours so does capture the other side of winter of which I wrote about. Love the playlist! “Hounds of Winter” may have been my favorite phrase.

A powerful poem. It really makes one pause. And I think of how for the people there, this is one in many dark, cold war winters over the centuries.

Fantastic composition ,3

I am looking forward to listening to your playlist. Thanks for sharing.
Your poem is such an important reminder of the hardships of Winter. Some are living in tents in my own hometown. Some are fighting a war with darkness.