There were twenty-five or more farms here
wee farms filled with orchards, berries, hazel trees,
veg, grain
cows sheep pigs
horses
and semi-wild cats
Wolves howled in the distance at night
in western Ukraine when it was part of Poland
though the animals weren't to know that
after the deportations
then the massacre of those who weren't deported
they burned down all the houses
chopped down all the trees
hungrily ate all the animals
and when the communists formally took ownership
of the land
they turned it all into one giant grain field
it was hard to imagine it as it once was
when my cousin and I visited it
before the war in Ukraine,
easier to imagine the deportation and massacres
as they are being re-enacted on film in the news
in our own time.
I am particularly pleased that my dad and his two sisters
died before the current invasion.
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