<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">What Mothers Know about War, a pantoum</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">I never liked my daughter’s stroller</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">I bought it unseen from an online store</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">when the box arrived I opened it and cried </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">somehow the dimensions felt all wrong </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">I bought it unseen from an online store</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">gave it to the family across the square</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">somehow the dimensions felt all wrong</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">today I found it—same model, same make</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">I gave it to the family across the square</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">I felt ungrateful for I had so much</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">today I found it—same model, same make </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">abandoned with others at the Medyka station</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">I felt ungrateful for I had so much</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">the sight of it triggered deep despair</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">abandoned with others at the Medyka station</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">waiting for refugees’ lives to begin </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">the sight of it triggered deep despair</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">as we welcome the mothers—one million and more</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">waiting for their lives to begin again</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">storming the border, babes at their breasts</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">As we welcome the mothers—one million and more</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">who pour into Poland on tides of tears</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">storming the border, babes at their breasts</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">all that they own strapped like mail to their chests</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">They pour into Poland on tides of tears</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">packed strollers await them, fit for a prince</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">infants strapped like mail to their chests</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">piled blankets and diapers to warm their new lives</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Packed strollers await them, fit for a prince</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">refugees flow in wearing thin cloth coats</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">piled blankets and diapers to warm their new lives</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">symbiotic survival—mothers’ hard truth of war</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Refugees flow in wearing thin cloth coats</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">after heat was shut off, the water lines cut</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">symbiotic survival—mothers’ hard truth of war</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">starved by the greed of the Russian state</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">after heat was shut off, the water lines cut</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">women were forced to flee and to hide</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">starved by the greed of the Russian state</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">victims of men’s urges, tossed like ashes</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">women were forced to flee and to hide</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">and after their flight, raped and tossed again</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">victims of men’s urges, tossed like ashes</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">their bodies are beachheads where battles are won</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">after their flight, raped and tossed again</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">their bodies as shelter, as instruments of war</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">their bodies are beachheads where battles are won</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">the things we don’t mention that all mothers know</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">their bodies as shelter, as instruments of war</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">I never liked my daughter’s stroller</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">the things we don’t mention that all mothers know</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">when the box arrived, I opened it and cried.</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Sandra Anfang</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTAM5K16r38NNhF_d_wbm6EeKPN4jTkGHVCj34uH2JmdOuZNSoIfPJpRi8WvPfXJJeaATP4gT8BQoFwu1S67JL6Djp8b_f4uYCxny-C38Tb2pTw0f0VDEb2OJgWOeKmIcAwnrhaiMNsQLFJ5KrwPx7b12tSMuAEuryyicVtgnidvrKZaeyqoQ=s916" style="color: rgb(241, 248, 18); margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" class=""><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTAM5K16r38NNhF_d_wbm6EeKPN4jTkGHVCj34uH2JmdOuZNSoIfPJpRi8WvPfXJJeaATP4gT8BQoFwu1S67JL6Djp8b_f4uYCxny-C38Tb2pTw0f0VDEb2OJgWOeKmIcAwnrhaiMNsQLFJ5KrwPx7b12tSMuAEuryyicVtgnidvrKZaeyqoQ=w400-h248" width="400" class="gmail-mcRssImage" style="border: 0px; height: auto; outline: none; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%; width: 528px; padding-bottom: 0px; display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;"></a><span style="font-size: x-small;" class="">"I’ve never liked my daughter’s stroller. I put it on the baby registry without trying it in person and when it arrived the dimensions felt wrong. The button that was supposed to facilitate one-handed folding did not facilitate one-handed folding. But over the weekend I saw a photograph of this stroller—the same style and color—sitting on the platform of a Polish train station, and this was the thing that finally obliterated what was left of my journalistic steel and made me sob about Ukraine. More than a million Ukrainian refugees have now poured into neighboring Poland, most of them women and children. When Polish mothers learned of this, it seems, they went to the railway stations and border crossings where the refugees were arriving, and they began dropping off baby strollers. A photojournalist [Francesco Malavolta/AP] covering the conflict snapped a picture of seven empty ones waiting at the Przemysl Glowny station [at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland]." —Monica Hesse, Washington Post March 9, 2022</span></div></div></div></body></html>