Refuge

taking shelter in Absurdity

knowing nothing wanting to know nothing

unbelieving

allowing the story to be told in gross cartoon

                                (wild harp voices lost in the screeling wind)

criticism hidden behind uncomfortable laughter

at the vagaries of hot air balloons

floating above the idiot parade

cords held by those who write apologia

for the horrors of history

no, they will not hear that wild music

skirling among the forests

wildernesses better to remain unexplored

cut down those trees! for therein dwells nightmare!

denude the land and stop those voices

that will only make you cry and fear

and maybe know the truth

of what's been done in your name  

laugh at the cartoon buffoons!

laugh until the door crashes in in the night!

laugh for that baby face down in the sand

that girl child twisted

broken by the side of the road

abandoned with love

by those who must ever move on

laugh for small bits remotely recognizable

as part of a human who was recently loving and laughing

playing games with his friends

with her friends

laugh at the poignant piles of dirty rags

once someone's mother sister daughter aunt

beloved

never to climb again out of that muck

churned up by thousands upon thousands

resolute feet plodding to who knows where

passing yellow light laughing from windows

the bonds still unbroken

the children allowed to remember they're young

the lights of your lanterns are torture

your torch is no beacon to beckon

no more than a moth to a flame

to self immolation

diving into abyss to escape abbatoir

blind drunk with Freedom from all that held us

honoring Place or Homeland

no room no time to bury the dead

my son ran off to join one of the militias

we didn't ask questions; it's safer not to know

he said he could no longer stay to see life blown apart

and not answer

left his brothers in charge, ages 14 and 10

 children with long guns

in the end not proof against death rained from the sky

not proof against mines underfoot

the treasures of our homeland for centuries

millennia!

smashed to dust

bombs and hammers, insurgents and kings

all sides destroying everything in their path

us

our children

schools homes shops, rubble

and the blood of the dead feeds the soil

i would live there

i Would!

in the shadow of the ruins

near the graves of my parents and those of the children

we had time to bury

and my husband not there

taken away by one of the militias

he never came home

those we could gather

sisters brothers in-laws cousins and their children

anyone left alive

some of the elders stayed

not to slow us down

we gathered our things and began this long walk

past your warm butter yellow lit house

and the unknowing laughter within

the welcome stops at the door

when you teach your children of this holocaust

remember these nameless ones passing your gate

o we have names but you will not know them

they are writ in the stars

and will prick your dreams

never let you forget

though ages pass away