“Russia invades Ukraine on many fronts in ‘brutal act of war’” – AP

“I’ll do everything in my power to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.” – President Biden

Things we don’t know include what shrapnel feels like;
the humidity of a metro-turned-bomb shelter;
why birds behave the way they do in war;
why humans shoot at birds for fun;
the difference between bravery and bravado;
the difference between price and cost.

No one is to blame for anything anymore.
Or is it that everyone is to blame for everything?
Maybe the world has gotten too small: so many billions
of us, incomprehensible to ourselves, let alone
one another, crowded together on this flammable
rock in this flammable galaxy in this flammable universe.
Why are we surprised when all goes up in flames?

War is bad for birds—see them scatter from decapitated
tree to decapitated tree!—and people, to be sure, but
even worse for the price of gas, which, incidentally,
is one of the few things we do know these days:
by the barrel, the gallon, the tankful…

So when a madman invades and millions suffer,
how else are we to quantify the cost of action?

Thursday, February 24, 2022