The Night The Sky Fell Apart ~ A Sestina

Photo Courtesy of News Delivers

Their sorrow fills the streets with wails filled of smoke
Ice and ash fall in the air, creating dirt that lasts a lifetime
Bravery is felt throughout tired shoulders, heavy and twisted
Citizens…people… holding heavy artillery, becoming soldiers
As mothers squat to comfort the young and the feeble
No atonement will come from the other side, thresholds broken

The noise of the bombs ring through the cities, lives broken
The eyes of the world watching skies filled with orange smoke
“Take up arms! Defend our nation!”, not words of the feeble
Stomachs filled with disgust, pain screaming into a lifetime
Their hearts become competition for oppositional soldiers
One man’s greed, the definition of distorted and twisted

Warped buildings filling the cityscape from which bombs twisted
Holes as deep as we are tall filled with dreams that are now broken
Senseless war, human walls push up against the egotistical man’s soldiers
Sacrifice and honor, fighting spirits push through billows of smoke
Meeting confused faces, unknowing of the grudge of his lifetime
No direction, hidden agenda, the actions of a man who is feeble

The oppressors always believe the oppressed to be feeble
Hear their strength, feel their fight…his reality twisted
Enough suffrage, damage, and carnage to span beyond my lifetime
Their spirit, dedication, loyalty, and passion can never be broken
The enemy hiding away from the world, coward hidden by smoke
My heart, my lungs, my eyes, my soul, all fixated on civilian soldiers

Mothers who should carry babies on their hips now hold guns, soldiers
Doubt nothing about their fight, as they will never be seen as feeble
Not the bombs, not the tanks, not the fearmongering, nor the smoke
Will ever make their devotion to their country turn twisted
When you see their faces, you will never see the word “broken”
Their strength will hold close to my heart for my lifetime

And the next and the next, an infinite and everlasting lifetime
Men, teenage sons, cousins, brothers, grandfathers—universal soldiers
Staring in the eyes of an enemy that will never cause them broken
Their hearts will never tolerate their allegiance of country to be feeble
Their chins held up high, never faltered and never twisted
Their minds see clearly even in a world full of blood, anger, and smoke

Broken never, in this lifetime
Smoke in the eyes of the soldiers
Feeble is the enemy whose mind is twisted

© E.M. Kingston, 2022 ~ All Rights Reserved.

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Written with dedication to the people who stayed in Ukraine to fight and provide for their country.

xoxo, E.M.

with a heavy heart…