Some poems retain their relevance, others don’t. I wrote this two years ago, when the invasion of Ukraine seemed as bad as things could get. I ended with ellipses to represent I knew not what. Since October 7, readers will be able to fill them in on their own. Is that enough to keep the poem relevant? You decide.

Antidote

Images from the east:
dark tanks and uniforms
black against snow,

like old news reels
without the grain and streaks.
The world’s gone retrograde.

Full moon in the western sky
pierces the clouds of earth’s
realities. I walk in its light

away from unending reports
of sorrows I cannot mend,
in Ukraine, Syria, Iran . . .

I think that the poem is still true, but also that there are more important things that need to be said.