Fear grew and grew some more, like the creeping of
mold on uncovered cheese, as the threat of war
turned into the harsh realities of one man's created madness.

Overwhelming enemy invaders crushed the psyche of
Ukraine's hard-working people. Peaceful prayerful,
people. Who went about daily dreaming dreams of families,
homes with a warm hearth, and children playing unafraid.

However, living in a country too often caught in an unrelenting
assault on their desire to be a free and self-supporting nation
was too near the dung heap of this Russian ruler.

The build-up of war machines massing in large numbers
rose to a critical mass with the enemy's youthful conscripted
warriors, unaware of their commander's motives, were sitting idle.
Believing that training to be a good soldier was their leader's plan.

The days fell into nights where mothers held babes in arms in utter
shock. Nesting in basements, damp shelters, and open roads desperate
to keep their children away from harm. The bombs intensified night
after a long-suffering night.

Citizen soldiers, sixteen to seventy-four,
the latter all too well remembering
the harshness of deteriorating conditions,
the agony of battle, loss of lives of loved ones,
sought any weapon feasible to ward off the approaching enemy.

The world showed little interest at first glance
to those in harm's way in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Luhansk
and less toward the women and girls; Anastasia, Alina, Daria, Kateryna,
or to the men and boy's; Ivan's, Oleksiy, Petro, Fedir.

However, the courageous and persistent Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine put faces in these cities and names to his people
and the nations, one by one, awakened.

Now, nations cry, "War no More"!
Pray thee all near and far!
Let us condemn, with such a loud and united voice,
that reason befalls this tyrant Putin.

Should we sovereign peoples fail to prevent the spread of this disease
of humankind that happens over and over,
if unleashed, runs rampant,
the world may never be, no more!

Just ten days in March.