Everything I promise you—
to dance with you,

to be with you in the dance,
on distant alpine peaks,
in blinding green fields,
black chasms,
in the folios of Egyptian libraries,
on red silk scrolls in Chinese shops,
everywhere and anywhere,
amid the beads, amid the sands,
on cinnamon waves,
in the pleated water lilies,
on whispering sheets,
tangling time and space.
– Marjana Savka, A Short History of Dance

On the other side of the world, there was, in a pedestrian underpass beneath Khreshchatyk Street, “a babushka in a plastic headscarf and worn out red coat who sits on a stool, and from the overturned box in front of her, sells loose cigarettes and bundles of purple and yellow wildflowers tied with string.”

Sornyaki: weeds. But once upon a time, a stranger, in weak Ukrainian, said they were beautiful. He carefully chose a bundle from the woman’s box and gave her 200 hryvnii, an outrageous amount. He placed the bouquet at a makeshift memorial for a bicyclist struck by a car, at a nearby intersection in Kyiv.

The whole soldier doesn’t suffer—
it’s just the legs, the arms,
just blowing snow,
just meager rain.

The memorial is gone. The babushka, probably too. But if you know where she went, will you please tell her, for me—I do not speak Ukrainian, or Russian; have not been to either country—that I would like to purchase dandelions. Every single one she will sell me. Every dandelion in Kyiv, in every crack, fault, on every street. We could mobilize the whole city to help. Dandelions are not weeds. They are “the yellowest of yellow flowers with butter hidden inside them.” If you don’t believe me, rub one on your chin. I would like to send them to every child in Kyiv, who could have been mine, and every mother, who could have been me, running, holding them in her arms.

just bullets on the wing,
just happiness ahead.

Just thunder, lightning,
just dreadful losses,
just the day with a dented helmet,

Another secret about dandelions: “Blow on a dried dandelion, and the seeds scatter to become a galaxy of stars.” If you don’t believe me, just look up, tonight, at the sky. And I promise, on the other side of the world, someone else will be looking up.