Vox Populi
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Arlene Weiner: Dead Russian Soldier
Stretched out in a foreign city
claimed to be his country’s.
How old? Eighteen, twenty?
Patriotism or mere obedience
brought him here.
Should we hate him, or pity?
We in the West aren’t clear
of blood and expedient
excuse for conquest.
.
Mother of this soldier, my hand
to you. My father lived in the land
where your son lies unburied,
now wasted by fire once again,
my kin were slaughtered there,
interred unhonored. I hear
“Slava Ukraini!” Words of glory—
this bloody story never ends.
Copyright 2022 Arlene Weiner
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The last line is all too true.
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Indeed it is.
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So sad. So grim. I feel a certain pull because my father was from Ukraine. A town called Zhitomir that appears to have been bombed to oblivion.
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I’m so sorry, Brenda…
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Thank you, Arlene, for this strong, succinct and empathetic poem.
Beautifully crafted and so true…
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I agree, Joan. The poem is so succinct and well crafted. A moving elegy for the unknown soldier, all the more powerful because he is the supposed enemy.
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Yes, agree with Sean Sexton…sadness. And truth in both Arlene’s poem and Sean’s quote above.
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Nothing but sadness here. We know that anonymity. “There is always a worker on either end of the bayonet.”
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Thanks, Sean. Yes, sadness — even the enemy has a mother who mourns him.
Michael Simms Publisher/Vox Populi Founder/Autumn House Press Author/Nightjar (poems) Author/American Ash (poems) Author/Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy (novel)
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