“All that time we were praying.”
Numerous ‘orcs’ checkpoints.
Passing through the horror.
“We thought those were our last minutes.
It was extremely scary.
But we were lucky.”
“Bodies were lying in the streets.
We tried not to watch them to save our minds.”
“The shelling was non-stop.”
“Everyone brought everything they had.
We all shared food.”
“It helped us not to lose hope.”
After two months living in the basement.
Two nerve-shredding days on the road.
Hiding from ‘orcs’.
‘Orcs’ were looting everything.
‘Orcs’ were armed and often very drunk.
‘Orcs’ drove around in Izyum.
In a convoy of vehicles.
She headed away from her home city.
And in safety she felt like lost everything.
“Now I realise I was living in a paradise.”
She misses the days when she would plant flowers.
In the garden with her granddaughter.
*Because I read “’We tried not to watch’ – escapees recount terror of Russian-occupied Izyum” by Sophie Williams and Olga Pona in Lviv, Ukraine, on 8 May 2022, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 April 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem as a story of Elena and her daughter.
Please read the original story on the BBC news:
‘We tried not to watch’ – escapees recount terror of Russian-occupied Izyum – BBC News
**My friend shows you this poem also on the Ukrainian website for their children and others!
Please join them!
