It’s mid-March in Boston

Anahita Vieira

A young girl sits in an improvised bomb shelter in Mariupol on March 7. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)

Snow falls in thick clumps;
it's mid-March in Boston.

Halfway across the world
a dictator drops bombs
on a children's hospital;
it’s mid-March in Mariupol. 

But listen—
no one asked you to reconcile
the beauty and the horror. 

When she tosses her head back 
Gaia drops soft ice crystals  

on your head, on the rooftops, 
on the train tracks, on the mailbox,

on the outstretched arms of the 
pious oak tree who thanked her  

more than we ever did.
Startled, you’ll see her
for the first time.  

And she’ll stare. right. back.
See this beauty?
It could have been yours. 

Bring your lips back together, now.
She doesn't need our apologies;
she will go on without us. 

That is a prayer.

Anahita Vieira graduated from the University of California, Davis with a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Currently she works as Senior Science Writer for the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She resides in Boston, Massachusetts with her wife, rambunctious twin girls and their dog who has the heart of a saint and face of a seal.