DINNER PARTY
a visit to Austin, Texas, March, 2022

                        at our hosts’ request we watch the news
                        while Brussels sprouts and red potatoes roast
                        fillets of fish marinate waiting for the grill    wine
                        glasses in hand we view on-scene footage
                        of how things are heating up in Ukraine    outside
                        I note the horizon line    stained in blood
                                     more wine? he asks, salted nuts? humus and chips?
                        bombs bursting in air    Russian soldiers everywhere
                        no electricity   no water   no shelter   no food 
                                     time to barbecue the fish, dear, she says, go ahead—
                        some two million have fled    unknown are dead   stars
                        light our skies with numerous    luminous    strength
                                     she lights table candles, rolls napkins into rings
                                     he carries in a serving plate of fish—steaming 
                        Ukraine    the size of Texas   where we are    but
                        with nineteen million more people (no, seventeen now)
                        an invasion    against resistance to domination    I want to say
                        the national animal of Ukraine is the common nightingale
                                     but delicious, I say, really lovely, beaming
                        staying this way   in the moment    though I know   yes
                       what’s happening anywhere touches everyone    yet
                        (I think)    guts some of us most particularly   we at the brink
                        with the old flags of our inherited souls    ringed in thorns
                        with ancestors’ tears     staining our cheeks    salting our food
                        with the song of the nightingale sounding in our heads  

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Poet, essayist, translator, Mar Ka is the author of BE-HOOVED (University of Alaska Press Literary Series, 2019), which book was a finalist for the Montaigne Prize, awarded for “thought-provoking” work. Her poems have been published nationally and internationally, won a prize or two, and more than once been set to music. Of Lithuanian heritage and come to Alaska from Chicago to support indigenous rights, she writes now from Alaska’s Chugach Mountains. A longtime judge of the UAA/ADN Statewide Creative Writing Contest, she teaches occasional writing workshops at the Eagle River Nature Center and promotes poetry readings at the Anchorage International Gallery of Contemporary Arts. She earned a law degree from the University of Chicago, and an MFA from the Institute for American Indian Arts.