Poem: Refugees

 

Refugees

 

in the lost gardens,

petals fluttered to weave rosaries.

no one dared gaze on the fretful stars,

those pigments of bone.

 

we trekked among tumbled bricks 

which lacked a hearth,

and boiled the bark of broken trees to chew.

chokeberry dyed our tongues.

 

tired legs 

slugged it out with the misshapen ground,

not so heavy, not yet, as the tank treads.

uneasy footsteps sidled 

when we came upon a pit; 

and saw so many tangled corpses

free now from terror, agony, hunger, grief, despair, rage,

and dysentery.

 

no rest, anywhere, for thousands of eyes 

which were no longer ripe with tears.  

why cry or sleep 

unless commanded by a final sun? 

why scavenge for useless dreams 

below a scythe of moon?

 

nothing left but stains of hope 

and blood and salt,

all passion sucked down 

into dead relatives and uprooted homes,

until we stumbled upon a fence--

 

and beheld an emerald realm of peace 

where war had no name.  

 

the well-fed ones there

offered wealthy words of welcome, 

even as they smiled and raised swift palms

to lock more and more iron

on the gilded gates.

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10/26/ eds

10/2/25 ... eds ... awful poem, tried to fix,