For the people of Ukraine
Here, crocuses paint brown grass lavender
in the safety of the warming earth.
Buds barely visible on trees and forsythia
listen for cues. Songbirds test
their voices after a long season
of silence.
There, snows swirl,
not enough to extinguish the fires
the screams, the darkness pooling
in the rubble of homes where sunflowers
will someday break through,
each one carrying a name.
Emily-Sue Sloane (emilysuesloane.com) is an award-winning Long Island poet whose publishing credits include Amethyst Review; Boston Literary Magazine; Corona; Front Porch Review; The Long Island Quarterly; Mobius Magazine; Muddy River Poetry Review; Paumanok; The Poeming Pigeon; The RavensPerch; Shot Glass Journal; and others. She is the author of a full-length poetry collection We Are Beach Glass (2022).
panoply, a literary zine 