Ukraine

Planted seeds for prosperity –
images of children frolicking
the delight of yellow horizons
tradition setting our fields ablaze

Till greed came knocking –
brother turning on brother

Rhetoric and lies shrapnel
shattering our dreams

Only the deer frolic now
unwitting participants in
this unprovoked slaughter
land mines defiling landscapes

But seeds are not lost,
nor are the legacy of generations
whose soil has known the red of blood
spirits who cannot be deterred

Independence will remain ours
the land a testimony to our toil
fortitude born of oppression
Ukraine stands proud.

(Image my own. Currently, in Ukraine, most areas have electricity outages, leaving inhabitants with hours of no light or heat in this cold. Any talk of peace is propaganda. The bombing has escalated.)

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VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

28 thoughts on “Ukraine”

  1. This poem reads like a field that remembers everything.

    The opening images stayed with me. Wheat. Children. Yellow horizons. That quiet confidence of a country trying to grow its future in peace. And then the shift. Not just bombs, but betrayal. When you describe it as “brother turning on brother,” it captures the deepest tragedy of this war. History, language, families, all torn apart.

    The line about rhetoric and lies being “shrapnel” feels painfully accurate. Wars today are fought not only with missiles, but with narratives. Words harden positions. They make compromise feel like defeat. And then the war stretches on.

    What struck me most was the image of deer playing where children once did. That silence after human life retreats. Land mines in the soil, power cuts in winter, darkness that is both physical and emotional. War does not just destroy cities. It changes the memory of a landscape.

    And yet, the poem refuses despair. “Seeds are not lost.” That is the spirit many people outside the headlines often miss. Resilience is not loud. It is stubborn. Quiet. Repeated every day in cold homes, long queues, and small acts of normal life.

    Reading this from Karachi, a city that has known its own seasons of fear and uncertainty, the message feels universal. When land absorbs blood, identity does not disappear. It hardens.

    Still, one thought lingers. The longer a war shapes national identity, the harder peace becomes. Pain gives strength, but it can also build walls that no negotiation can easily cross.

    Your poem captures both the beauty of what was and the cost of what is being defended. That tension is what makes it powerful.

    Thank you for writing this. It reminds us that behind strategy and geopolitics, there is always soil, memory, and ordinary lives trying to endure.

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    1. I deeply appreciate your thoughtful response. For four years I have been helping displaced Ukrainians, and reassured to know that i have captured their situation.

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