creatures in wartime
After the war moved in, some went numb and never returned. Some emitted the atmosphere of carnival, others of tombs. Either way, what rattled was the shells of battle shocks, tiring over time while inside them the minds and lives of us where it rained fire and none could remove their boots, an endless waiting while covered in successive barrels of earth but not relief. We saw things and heard them, carrying on.
From here
What to make
of what remains
after the burn?
In an aftermath
Maybe what lasts after endings is this
wind as song stripped of technique
bells as sound of fallen leaves, light
a riot of color, firing life–––––––
and stars as receivers who curve
long necks of shine to hear each
prayer in context at a distance
to reveal how this planet for now
at any given moment still pulses
with these voices of us reminding
us please–– and dear–– and help––
beyond the beyonds of this all.
Descendants of an aftermath.
When the smoke cleared, we left what was left of the temples and abandoned our sacrificial cups. No longer painting the chapel walls, we made canvases of our skins, our creed now take this body, and we gave it up. Nothing could save us, and we carried this truth as a torch foisted before our faces, marching into the long night. We were something else now, wild, painted creatures of flesh and word, with no more monuments to shield us from the elements that mocked our feeble forms. An awareness grew, of an element breathing among us as we moved, but we would no sooner mark this with a sign than claim the wind.
In the dark between destruction and rebirth.
After the promise, before the fallen fruit, love was so loud that what followed might be called nature’s reproach. We suspected it was. But our memories of watercolor flights stayed anyway between water and sky, and us gliding in wide-winged pelican formations––long after their welcome, ignoring the new signs warning against the trespass of our breath.
After the storm, our eyes fall into these empty hands and roll across the wreckage around us until they are soaked in the sludge of charred remains.
Only this silent plea between us now, strong and invisible; and time no longer ours, and in the dark hours before dawn, it may echo an inquiring trinity, Love, will you make the world here again? and then Hear, again and Love, here.
