October 2023

Shame : so hard to forget

this soft word starting with a  Sh!

as of secrets, brushed under deep carpets

and A in its middle, alphabet's beginning

an inarticulate wail, of despair, horror, grief

while at the end, M, sound of gums without teeth

of babies and the very old and all of us

who take in the news, without chewing it over

digesting it into right and wrong, want to get on

with our own lives. What could we have done?

Do not say, infront of cameras eager for wisdom

that you speak for me! How dare you

with all your education, power, experience

of political alliances and ends justifying means

assume I, who  only feel, cannot understand!

Cannot sift from the airwaves'  measured words

cries for lost children, parents, Hope! Do not

pit one people's deaths against another's 

and call the massacre of prisoners  self defence!

It is revenge!. No good crops grow from bombs.

This year's storms brought down many

towering trees. I feel the moss soft trunks

where they lie across my path, their last leaves

each like a soul, piled in rustling continents; recall

walking here with my child, years ago - a two legged whirwind

tossing glorious, gold bushels to the air, dancing, rolling

shrieking joy, but I, being older, feared history

the hurt of stones  hidden underneath 

like the atrocity taking place now