Thanks to whoever left this camera running,
perched on a sill, Kyiv’s evening falls here also.
The boulevard looks peaceful. Sunset glimmers,
gives the cupola a soft golden aura.
Now and then church bells chime, as if in prologue.
A solitary vehicle, assessing
shadows, creeps quietly along the pavement.
No words, no faces; once or twice a birdcall
reveals that love is still making an effort
to fill this city. Now, only imagine
no grind of tanks offscreen, no sirens wailing.
Claudia Gary lives near Washington DC and teaches workshops on Sonnet, Villanelle, Natural Meter, Persona Poems, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org), currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and several chapbooks, most recently Genetic Revisionism (2019), she is also a health science writer, visual artist, and composer of tonal chamber music and art songs. Her chapbooks are available via the email address at pw.org/content/claudia_gary..Her 2022 article on setting poems to music is online at straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html.