April 23, 2026
For those who don’t know, and I’m sure that’s a majority of people, April is designated National Poetry Month in the USA. Read about it here: https://poets.org/national-poetry-month-30th-anniversary. In honor of this month, the university library in my city invited some local poets, including me, to do a reading yesterday of some of our published poems.
One of my poems in particular whispered to be posted here again. I first posted it in 2022, not too long after Russia invaded Ukraine. But as I read it aloud yesterday, I was struck by the truth that each of us in 2026 has “pails of cherries” to share in these trying and uncertain times, and further, how each “pail” becomes an act of hope for the world and a form of resilience against the “snakes.” In recognition of National Poetry Month, the power of the written word, the courage of Ukraine, my appreciation for poetry, and the gifts of all creative spirits everywhere, I’m reposting Pail of Cherries.
Pail of Cherries
Across the world,
war uncurls as one country eats another
like a snake swallowing its own tail
like a serpent trailing itself through a saffron
and indigo garden, devouring anything
everything in sight with
unceasing appetite.
Across the world,
in ruined villages and gutted towns,
men and women stumble to their gardens
in futile search
of what they had planted, of what
they had dreamed.
They lift empty hands in prayer
in despair
for a world ensnared in black storm,
inky palls, the uncertainty of gray.
Across the world,
where emptiness gnaws,
a stranger, a woman,
appears through the dust
that circles a hungry village, a pail of
bright cherries in her hands,
hands that have just gathered
this offering of bright red cherries
from bomb-singed branches, cherries
to be shared, bright cherries
in a pail, a spot of crimson glowing
against the gray scorched
soil in a shadowed world
where, for a moment, the snake
pauses and blinks.
(c) Rosemary McMahan, POEM, #132, November 2024
Photo credit: Beatrice Chapelle, Pixabay
Note: This poem was birthed by a Facebook post in 2022 that mentioned a woman who shared her cherries with a small village in Ukraine.
Spirit Reflections 