First Anniversary.

 February 24th 19.00 hours. 


Irish people are invited

To sit in darkness 

And to pray in silence

For every mother

Who has lost a child

In battle-torn Ukraine. 


Let all families 

Sit as long as they are able

In the darkness 

On the last Friday leaving winter

And heading into Spring. 


No hope will be abandoned 

As the year turns toward the light

Let the Russian mothers

See their sons again

As they lay down their arms

Weeping for their brothers. 


It’s time for all these guns

To be put back in their cases

Time for ail the dead 

To be mourned at their cold graves

Time to plough the land

And leave a narrow furrow 


Where the seed of peace is sown

Beginning on this night 

When the lights are dimmed 

And the flickering candles 

In our windows greet the stranger. 


Is it too much to ask

To turn the lights off

For an hour 

As we remember 

Those in Kyiv in the shelters

When the sirens sound tonight? 

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