for the freedom fighters of Ukraine

It was like coming out of a coma, or a long deep sleep
in which all the pleasure of the world before,
and the days before, and the nights before,
when everything seemed so tender and vibrant and good,
was no more than a thing imagined,
and the actual world was forever that one –
that grim hellhole, with its perpetual darkness,
and its muddy trenches of confined people,
with no dreams left, and no thoughts ever
of getting up, getting out, to where there might be
some ladder to the elusive stars; but then,
from somewhere, something shifted … and there was a voice,
a light, a smile … and you were beside me,
beside the bulletless boundary of my bedside, when I woke up.