On this day, spring is slowly dawning in the place I call home. Warm sunshine settles on my shoulders. The brilliant yellow of the daffodils will soon decorate my back doorstep. A cardinal finds a perch among the blue-green branches of my spruce. Cotton-ball clouds are scattered against the bluest of skies.

At this moment in time, my heart swells with gratitude for this place … this land … a safe haven, yet undisturbed by events in another place on another side of the world.

But my thoughts are not far from Ukraine. Ukrainians stand strong. Men and women alike stand and fight for the country they call home, the country they love. They fight for a lifestyle they cherish. Death and destruction knock on their door, and they still stand. They still fight. They have courage and determination. They are warriors. They are true patriots!

I read the poem “Invictus” and I thought of Ukraine. Its “head is bloody, but unbowed.” America prays for Ukraine, that she will be the “master of (her) fate.”

And then I wondered, as so many of us have, if this same destruction knocked on our door, in this place we call home, would we stand? Would we fight as Ukrainians do? Would we be “unbowed”? Would we?

Pamela Brant
Westbrook