What else should I tell you. We were in an Elantra

purchased in Nova Scotia. We headed out from Warsaw.

The only thing that makes sense here is the sound.

From staging grounds in Chad and Sudan, white storks

traverse the Levant. I’d last seen them in the Okavango,

when everything was on fire. I didn’t know

they spend a second summer here. Twice

in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast we stopped the car

for photos. Elaborate stick nests on utility poles,

onion dome churches in the background. Both times

I was shouted at by old women. The moment

I start telling it as story, I lose momentum.

Fields of hay scythed and raked and stooked by hand.

Maybe the women were worried we’d bother

the birds. Or are we not meant to photograph

utility poles in a time of war. Conditions change

along the way. Distance mattered in ways

I couldn’t know until many years had passed.