While a dictator's second-best bombs
blasted people in Kjiv, I
shopped for groceries
not far from a massive volcano
wrapped in snow like an ermine-coated
queen with a molten temper.
Privileged beyond measure,
I gulped big breaths of iced air,
indulged in despair, uselessly
fretted for fellow humans,
imperfect lovely people
a half a planet away.
How evil finds a way
to fill little rage-addicted men
like pus until they burst
in a death riot, I can't say.
Why so many shocked children
and their parents have to die
before such a small box of rot
finally dies from his own mad
virus, I can't know. So:
I looked into a set gray sky
in some region named
the Pacific Northwest,
couldn't cry, took my sad
bags into a store and pushed
a little wheeled cage around aisles.
hans ostrom 2022
