In Leaves of Ukraine, award-winning poet David Dephy meditates on war, faith, and silence — where language collapses and only the divine quiet remains. A haunting reflection on human endurance.
So, you are God. That’s how you look. I always knew you must be very familiar, but never have a chance to be quiet in this deadly noise of a millennium. You are reading my thoughts, but they are empty. No words, no images, no meanings, no sounds, no memories, but silence. Are you enjoying silence? I can think without words. Only silence is real, not noise. Was that nightmare real? Or was the point always to continue with pain? You know a lot about us, but if you want to know how I spend my time listen to my heartbeat, it was your home, but now it’s empty. Was I brave? Will I be born again? Maybe I was not real at all? Was I your own dream? You just woke up and I vanished, right? Do you want to walk in the streets, under the bombs? Or the front lawn? Pretending to be watering roses? I always pray alone, but never prey standing on my knees, pulling clumps of clover from the roses, in fact, I am looking for signs, sometimes, for some evidence our life will change, though it changed already, checking my breath for the precious leaf, and soon the war is ending, already, the news is turning, and our mothers’ voices are turning as the tides and other children are not shot, they are still alive, right? And the leaves are turning, dying, and turning into your divine yellow, while a few notes perform their helpless sound of music far beyond, on the other side of our dreams. Remember, I loved you, I always had a choice, but now I have not, because you woke up and I vanished. Remember, before I will change as silence through the living words— we are breathing together, we are dying together, and there is no way out. Thank you for that time when we were immortals— thank you for my childhood.
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✍️ About the Authors
David Dephy is a Georgian-American award-winning poet named a Literature Luminary by Bowery Poetry and The Stellar Poet by Voices of Poetry. His work bridges the sacred and the human.
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