flower protest – Pamela Toomey

(Rondeau)

by Pamela Toomey

In Belarus white flowers bloom
Reflected on steel-plated gloom
Of armored bodies; phalanx hewn
From tyrant’s need to crush the tune
Of freedom’s trill, its voice entomb.

We are alive and will resume
Soft tap on Kevlar hearts, exhume
Blest Gate of Dawn while hearts balloon
In Belarus.

Outflanked by tanks and rattling boom
We face the fray: doom stacked on doom.
O Western world, seek no cocoon;
Democracy is not immune
To growing glut of despots’ spume
In Belarus.