The separation between
squiggles on the page and the actual.
Between the word and the sword.
How one letter turns it to blade,
severed flesh, blood, anguish.
How to write of rage, of parched throats.
Incapable words, incapable rockets and bombs.
Words scattered
like limbs under rubble.
I could talk of weeds sprouting
to flowers, how they bend
toward the sun as do humans
in a kind of tropism of our own
but that is nowhere in evidence.
Unlike heads of state
and as yet non-states,
a poem must not lie.
There can be no poetry, nothing
that hasn’t already been said
in curses, screams and prayers.
Each day, unspeakable.
Ach - thank you for this. It speaks to my heart, and the anguish from half a world away about which it feels we can do nothing.
ReplyDeleteMaybe just talking to friends is enough.
ReplyDelete