<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="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Ruined the Flowers</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><i class=""> </i></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><i class="">After a painting by Ukrainian artist Ivan Stepanovich Marchuk</i></div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> </p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">This bowl doesn’t hold gooseberries,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">only cracked eggshells. And this</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Madonna wears a veil of twine and reeds.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">She has made a bird’s nest of herself, but</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">there’s no safety in her cup of twigs. She weeps</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">brown tears for all her broken children.</div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> </p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">She should be the patron saint of that</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">maternity hospital the Russians bombed.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">She reminds us never to forget the blanket-covered</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">bodies. Yet another war, yet another power-mad</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">madman, the latest in the world’s long history of horror.</div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> </p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">She is an Earth Mother, isn’t she, grieving not</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">only destroyed cities where women labor </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">among the rubble and dead children rest uneasy</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">in mass graves, but also the fields of unplanted </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">wheat, spring wildflowers crushed by tank treads, </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">bumblebees and spiders waking from their winter sleep </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">not to meadows and backyards, but to smoke and flames.</div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> </p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Weep for your daughters, oh Lady of the Broken Eggs.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Weep for the ruined flowers.</div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> </p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Pat Valdata</div><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> </p><p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> </p><div class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="AAC3B869-22E7-497B-BEEE-730541148E16" src="cid:D2C5EDC7-5BAC-407E-AEBA-C210ABF82825" class=""></div></div></div></body></html>