Book Burning
for Halyna, 71, Izium, Ukraine
If I burnt all my books, my soul would die
that cartwheels across pages thrumming with bees.
Those buzzing pages charged and warmed me
when no human heart opened itself up to me.
I read honeybees sparked electricity,
so, when no one I passed comforted me,
I trapped legions in jars, prayed to keep them alive–
fly them to Izium’s shattered Buddha shrine,
detritus of war, where at its feet Halyna is wool-wrapped,
braced against winter and artillery. Fierce cold
and repelling charges have led to this quandary.
She sighs:
I’ll burn my books to save what is left of me.
Louhi Pohjola was born in Montreal, Canada, to Finnish immigrant parents. She was a cell and molecular biologist before teaching sciences and humanities in a small high school in southern Oregon. She tends to write poems focused on the intersections of human behavior and the natural world, in particular, with black holes, the cosmos, and octopi. She is an avid fly-fisherwoman and river rock connoisseur. Louhi lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and her temperamental terrier. The latter thinks that he is a cat.
The Marbled Sigh 