In 1956, the Hungarian Revolution was crushed by Soviet tanks in a massacre of defenseless protesters who were left to their fate by The West. As a 14-year-old Irish school dropout, I recall one stanza of a poem—really a cri de coeur—whose desperate plea still haunts me.

“Dear God, can we stand idly by…

And watch a gallant nation die?

Is all the western world asleep

While heroes bleed, and women weep?

Now, here we are, 66 years later. Same situation. The West is not so quite inert, but hardly confronting the barbarism of Putin. The poem of ’56 is just as apt now as it was then. How many cities will have to be leveled? How many murdered in their homes and playgrounds before we say, ENOUGH, to the monster of Moscow?

What are today’s Ukrainian poets saying about Putin’s invasion?

I thought you’d like to know. For poets have a way of speaking the truth, and being remembered.

The place I want to get back to
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let’s see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can’t be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.

Mary Oliver
Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006)

Brendan Kennelly

Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.

— From The Essential Brendan Kennelly

W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

Thomas J. Rice

My college roommate drowned the day we first met.

He was just 18, tall and blonde, with a shy smile, bright blue eyes,

and a bone-crushing handshake. “I’m Bjorn Karlsson, Sioux City, Iowa,” he blurted. “Gotta run; swim test.”

We were both freshmen, assigned to the same big double on the first floor of the ivy-covered dorm, taking the requisite test before classes started. “I don’t really know how to swim,” he tossed over his shoulder, laughing. “Just want to get the damned thing over with.” Then he bolted.

He promised to meet up afterwards at the student union.

But he never showed. Back at the dorm, I found out why.

He dove in the deep end and never came up.

Seems no one noticed. But how could that be?

Oddly, I still dream of his fierce handshake and shy smile.

And I’ve always wondered how they broke the news to his parents.

HOPE

Either we have hope within us or we do not.

It is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world.

HOPE is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.

HOPE in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance to succeed.

HOPE is definitely not the same thing as optimism.

It is not the conviction that some thing will turn out well, but certainty that something makes sense

regardless of how it turns out.

It is HOPE, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things.

Vaclav Havel