September: A poem by Andrew Harrelson

Serebryanka, Donetsk/Luhansk Oblast border

September's spent heat hums

Small insects strangely aware

Their time is near

A body feels its boundaries

More keenly in the cold

Images of exhumed Izium, Bucha

Captured on 35mm film

Displayed in Kyiv's Ukrainian House

Advance, aim and shoot

The dance of cameras and guns

She lay in her doorway 

Next to her broom

Feet turned at odd angles

dirt from the garden

still on her boots

Snow is falling in the West now

Dusting Hutsul farms while

Apricots are dropping in the East

Bruising on the ground

Snow will arrive to Donbas soon

Trees and children play the same games

Remember the same memories

Until children grow and

Become old as trees and then

They can play again

Here ash floats like dandelion seeds

up with a current under wing

Then pulled to earth again

To mingle with the dirt 

A soul cannot remain hidden

It will out again and again

Through what was left behind

A diary wrapped in plastic in the garden

An old injury under skin

A pair of glasses in the breast pocket

A bright manicure on her hands

How arrogant to think that

Something so loved

could be erased