"IMAGINE" - Mike Stone, Israel

 

Imagine a city or town like yours

In which you get up in the morning

Extricating yourself from your warm blankets

Slip on your jeans and slippers

And wake the kids to get ready

For kindergarten or nursery.

Imagine you sit down to breakfast

Eggs or cereal, maybe pancakes

Make sure they brush their teeth

Pile them into their car seats

Turn the key in the ignition

Check the gas tank, the mirror

Look both ways and pull out carefully

Depositing each one safely

With the other children and teachers.

Imagine you go to work

You get a good day’s work in

Go home, kiss the wife and kids,

Put them to bed, unwind with the wife

Have a delicious supper

Share a couple glasses of wine

And climb into bed together

Under the blankets

And the normal worries of the day

Until you sink into pleasant dreams.

Now imagine a city or town in Ukraine

It doesn’t matter which

It could be Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Lviv,

Or anywhere else in that God-forsaken country

Skies blackened with missiles, shells

Fighter jets, helicopters, tanks and artillery

With no place to hide, no food or water,

No pharmacies or hospitals left standing

Fathers and grandfathers unable or unwilling

To leave their country to fall into the hands

Of a would-be Stalin whose dreams

Are the nightmares of everyone else.