We did nothing: A poem

 the ground feeds us the song of the spun seasons. 

The countrywide fire raze through the cocoon

 

of the many voices that we call home. it is there 

we carry, all the dead, all the  harmattan seeds 

bouying the waves of bird wings fleeing the opera 

of silence. it is there we roll the mat into the maw 

of godless yawn, like yam heads, we plant headstones 

to count the teeth of war. where the footprints 

of leaf boats sail into sunbeams still reeling 

from the brightly lit fingers of missiles are, 

you will find the baby toes of flowers fluttering 

out of the miserly dirt, eager like any child to play 

with bullets, roll with tank wheels, dangle from the lip 

of hellfire. The soil is soft with sin, thick like black 

flies, the heat curling from its tongue like a pipe 

smouldering with the ashen remains of many forgotten 

names. where are our brothers & sisters? for widows 

in weeds weeding the plots of husbands whose 

uncovered faces or porous chests grow garlands that 

little girls learn to turn into crowns, there 

& here is the same. we collude with heaven to weep 

& wipe the traces of the crime & the trees carry 

the canary to where the gong dances like fireflies 

pushing the flesh of night into an artificial dawn. 

let us turn our faces to the wall, fill our ears 

with candle wax & say, nobody is gone, no one is lost. 

let us be mute like water inside ears, stirring drum 

into the hollow cacophony of an empty theatre

& if there are crosses, we did not stab his side 

or put the nails, we did nothing, so let us be. 

Note: it is necessary to have conversations around war, violence and the effects both long term and short term of it all. 

Image credit: pixabay