When I see photos
of bomb-strewn rubble
among streets and buildings
where I used to lunch,
or trees among trenches,
branches bare against a cloudy sky,
I yearn to be there,
to wander streets and forests once again
that signal “home” to some atavistic memory
from long-gone forebears
and a decade working walking talking eating with friends,
or carefully picking my way down unlit icy streets
to a solitary sushi dinner
in peacetime Kyiv.
