Babushka

This is the 21st century in which we live

not the 13th when fiercely brutish Mongol

hordes invaded Russia to lay waste and

slaughter at will. In this modern era nations

unify in their contractual commitment to

humane treatment of others where such

reversals of civilizational norms would never

recur. In a village in Ukraine weary old women

stand beside modest rural homes, their worn

faces revealing despair, gnarled workhands 

folded in appeal, their rude garb speaking of

another era of quiet village life and little concern

of unimaginable air bombardments interrupting

lives. Now, slumped backs of hopelessness

prevail, no electricity, no potable water with

their town council's concern its residents not 

freeze in the winter chill while hauling pails of 

well water leave in their yards fresh-cut firewood

from a nearby forest because the present-day 

tyranny of a Russian invasion where power and

and electricity plants are relentlessly bombed

alongside hospitals, theatres, city apartment

blocks have reduced normal life here in this

century to a mirror-image of the 13th century.