This is an old, out-dated poem, but it doesn’t go away. This is not a statement about politics but tears for the forgotten women and children suffering because of others’ arguments.

April 2, 2022

Orchestra musicians and choirs

Donated a free concert in aid of

Ukraine.

Guests waved blue and yellow flags,

Wore blue and yellow clothes

Or gorgeous flowy Ukrainian blouses.

No one clapped the whole evening

Until

Every song and every poem and the grand

Ukrainian national anthem

Faded into silence.

And then

The appropriate applause lasted for a long, loud time.

 

Surrounded with plush red velvet, dim lighting,

Glittering chandeliers,

We called this solidarity.

We called it respect. And it was.

And the music had been beyond beautiful.

 

But how does velvet sit in

Harmony with missiles and battered bags,

Fractured families, mass graves?

The irony, the audacity

Sits heavy on my chest.

 

And

Where were the charity concerts

For starving Afghanis hiding from their government?

Why is no one singing

The Sudanese national anthem

And remembering their child soldiers?

 

Ukraine is close enough and

White enough

For America to do something—anything—even

Host a luscious night of music and call it

Care.

 

Beneath my confused anger

Weeps grief.

Above the globe

Weeps Jesus

Over the wreckage of the world.