UKRAINE SPRING

Tell me it is spring,

when a tiny daffodil punched up into the air,

its glorious yellow head, still in a sea of brown grass,

pierced my blurry vision.

Ukrainian yellow, I thought,

a good name for a new color.

And then a tank ran over the flower,

but only in my distorted thoughts.

I am sure there are millions of daffodils pushing up

into the Ukrainian blue sky,

and there are children holding yellow bouquets somewhere,

on a train to Romania.

There are even daffodils in Russia,

pushing up into a cold Russian sky,

and Russian children running in their playgrounds,

oblivious to the sounds of guns and bombs a thousand miles away.

A Russian ballet dancer left the Bolshoi and danced in Poland.

She looks like a daffodil,

stands slight and slender.

She still dances to Glazunov and Tchaikovsky,

there is no place for her to dance in Mariupol,

the dance floor is empty, the theater is gone.

In spring, there is always hope, beauty, and renewal,

they will dance again in Kyiv,

and there are more daffodils to come.

We cling to these signs,

these fragile symbols of life,

pushing through the dirt,

amid the ruins and the rubble.

We need to believe in the yellow,

in the slender grace of ballet dancers,

in the children who still run and laugh,

in a world that insists on coming back to life,

no matter how many tanks roll over the daffodils.

Tell me it is spring,

because in the heart of destruction,

we need the reminder that life continues,

that flowers will bloom,

and dancers will find their stages,

even if it's not where they expected.

We need to believe in the yellow,

in the fragile, persistent hope,

that somewhere, somehow,

life is still beautiful,

and worth fighting for.

In the quiet moments,

when the world seems too heavy,

we search for these signs,

the tiny daffodils of our souls,

pushing up through the debris of despair,

reaching for the sunlight,

for the promise of something better.

Tell me it is spring,

when the heart feels winter’s grip,

when the days are long and the nights longer,

when hope seems a distant memory,

buried under layers of sorrow and loss.

But the daffodils, they defy the cold,

they push through the hardest soil,

they bloom against the odds,

a testament to resilience,

to the undying spirit of life.

We need these reminders,

these small miracles of yellow,

to hold onto,

to guide us through the darkness,

to show us that even in the bleakest times,

beauty persists,

hope endures.

Tell me it is spring,

because we need the renewal,

the rebirth of faith,

the awakening of dreams

long dormant.

We need to see the ballet dancer dance,

to watch the children play,

to feel the sun warm our faces,

and know that life,

despite everything,

is relentless in its return.

So, tell me it is spring,

and let the daffodils be our guide,

the symbols of our survival,

the emblems of our hope,

because in their delicate petals,

we find the strength to carry on,

to believe in the beauty of the world,

and the promise of a new day.