“I feel such sadness, desolation”

- Ukrainian refugee

Desolation isn’t often used in English this way,

to describe a state of being, rather than physical space,

It’s poetry this world needs to recognize

this condition is shared by any refugee.:

Stranded in expanse

uncertainty stretching endlessly out...

This is “desolation”

as used in by a Ukrainian.

It’s the words of one whose plight, for some,

is exceptional

that so beautifully describes what for all displaced

is universal.

No sign of an end to the war in sight

no sense of how far they will find themselves from home.

No way at all of knowing for how long

Desolation -

felt in the aftermath of the end of their worlds

surely must be much the same.

Solidarity with the displaced

in Ukraine and beyond.

What words I wonder, are reserved for the extra pain

atop desolation felt by non white refuges from Ukraine?

I do not know them

but I know what this is

apartheid humanitarianism in action.

right in front of us in real time: racism.

Pulled out of line for too much melanin,

held back for 10 white faces to go ahead

or cordoned off entirely from the others

- just as desolate as any of they,

non whites being told to stand aside and wait.

It must be possible, there must be another one that’s perfect

a word that seems made for the suffering it describes

as “desolation” does with displacement.

I realise I’m a poet describing writer’s block in verse

and that I’ve used some good ones,

evoking the verb to desert

but that is hardly evil

nor nearly violent enough

it doesn’t convey the callous disregard for some -

and compassion reserved for people who look like them.

The truth is it’s not total heartlessness but selective solidarity that is the seed of fascsim.