Even in the sting and sear of
these shrapnel days, the gardens
insist on their green rebellions,
stubborn fists of tulips pushed
through the lingering skin
of frost and body parts,
the lilacs by the Dnipro gushing violet
beside grandmothers planting potatoes
among the sandbags, hands
wizened by survival, each seed
an argument with the future,
every root a refusal to vanish.
Along the broken alleyways
children chalk bouquets and blooms
on cratered walls, an image
speaking a thousand words,
while cats turn molten in
the sunlight of this fractured
place where sirens drift the air
like blossoms and budding trees
mock the sulphured stink
with their urgent shoots
lifting emerald hands
in prayer toward the heavens.
Neither rubble nor carnage
can deny the sap its singing
journey through the green veins.
Beneath the detritus the worm
must work its spangled magic
of defiance and renewal:
the ruin of today becomes
the soil of tomorrow,
while the people of Kyiv
walk the thawing streets
cradling spring like treasured
contraband inside their hearts.