She confronted soldiers on her street
Ignoring guns, grenades and gibbering headsets
She offered them a handful of Sunflower seeds
Keep them in your pockets boys
That Flowers may blossom from your graves
Forever a monument to the Children you have murdered
And the Families you have destroyed
That Flowers may stretch their golden faces to the Sun
And at nighttime whisper
Here lie conscripted young unfortunates
Who came here uninvited from the East
Destroyers of Beauty, carriers of madness
And when Mothers come to visit lonely graves
Their tears will water fields of golden Sunflowers
Reaching forever towards a bright horizon
Yellow beneath an endless clear blue sky
Here, In Our Beautiful Ukraine
Mike Harding gave me my very first Folk Club gig back in 1966. We have remained friends ever since. Shortly after Putin’s invasion we organised a concert in support of the Red Cross in Ukraine. Mike heard of the concert and sent me this Lyric which I recited on that night in Vicar St. Dublin.
Subsequently, I recited it again with Gavin Murphy in his studio in Prosperous, County Kildare and decided to include it here on Terrible Beauty. (from “The Lonely Zoroastrian” published by Luath Press)