Ukraine Dispatch 22 | Summer is Here
Ukraine Dispatches
Volume 1 2022
IN MAY 2020 I was moved to write these lines when I found and licensed this beautiful image.
Looking through my register today, I was intrigued by the title Summer is Here. I located the piece which I had posted afresh on October 3, 2020. What surprised me, even more, is to find my original author note that refers to Kyiv. At that time I had used the older anglicised spelling.
Slowly, things started to come together. At that time, despite 2014, despite the illegal annexation of Crimea, despite Russia fomenting hatred in the Donbas region, moving its forces therein but then with breath-taking arrogance denying any such thing at all, I wrote these lines because I believed in Ukraine and knew that their future lay westward with the European Union.
What I plainly did not see was the horror of February 24, 2022, the unimaginable nightmare of Mariupol, the genocide in Irpin, Bucha and many other towns and cities during the Russian occupation, committed by Russian troops.
I passionately believe in Ukraine, the Ukrainian People, and the future of Ukraine as an independent sovereign nation.
Summer is Here now a very long way off, but in the civilised world, the great democracies stand with Ukraine.
The enemy is at the Gates.
President Zelenskyy is right to warn that Russia will become more aggressive as the European Union considers Ukraine’s application. We know, too, that President Zelenskyy is a very natural wartime leader ~ ‘Churchillian’, a term I do not use lightly. Then, Volodymyr Zelensky came into our lives on the world stage. Yes, it is true … cometh the hour, cometh the man!
We must not be put off by dictators.
We must not fear the Russian People for they have, through their own stupidity and short-sightedness, squandered the opportunity to become an open, free and democratic society, and allowed themselves to become the proverbial bull with a ring through its nose.
One day, not yet, the People of Ukraine WILL be able to say Summer is Here.
Ukrainians, you are a mighty, courageous, and truly humble People. Stand your ground, and still stand. You WILL win the day.
20 June 2022
All Rights Reserved
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022
Summer is Here First written May 2020
Original Author Note ~ October 3, 2020
Inspired a few minutes ago (May 2020) by this Image Licensed to me by Adobe Stock.
Reposted today, 3 October 2020 due to interest from the great City of Kiev, Ukraine
SUMMER IS HERE
Come! Let us walk together, you and I
The evening is calm,
the air is warm,
Summer is here ...
Let us keep our hearts and minds on the high things
Let us see the delight in our children
Let us marvel at the breaking of the day
Let us slumber at the noonday
Let us walk together, hand in hand
as we have always done
Let us look to the future
Let us see wide open spaces teeming with people
Let us see the walkways and boulevards
the piers and the dunes
filled with the throng and delight of children at play
of our children resting again
of our grandchildren, in peace though saying not a word,
because they sense from their parents
that the danger has passed
Let us seize the day
Let us seize the hour
Let us think this
and imbue this within the tissue and fibre
of our very souls and being
For you and I are but One
We are two halves of one whole
We are knit together
There is no happenchance
We are meant to be
And it is this – this Confidence – that indwells us
and is the anchor, our future, of our family, of life
and, yes, life after too
Come! Let us walk together, you and I
The evening is calm,
the air is warm,
Summer is here …
18 June 2022
All Rights Reserved
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022
First written May 2020
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
