Mariupol
Mariupol, Mary’s City, vast,
Alive with workers, artists, children,
Industrious beside its brooding sea.
Long-gone occupiers named it
For their Russian queen. This gray morning,
Solitary snowflakes wander over
Mariupol bombed waterless,
Over its starving remnant fleeing.
Comes to mind another Mary,
Birthing for the world the Bread of Life.
All I can know of Mariupol now
Is an infant barely born, dead,
And his shrieking, dying mother.
Deanna Harrington Christiansen
2022