Poetry
For All
‘before its too late’
For those who weep in silence forgotten
gaping the earth with fractured memory:
names conjuring displaced faces by those
who ponder their epitaphs yet still breathe.
For those who stroll sightless through doubtful lives
half waking half sliding to destiny.
and for the beasts leashed to their destructors
howling above the wails of borrowed grief.
For the grass blazing under the sun’s heat
and empty forests yawning time’s greed: the
oaks’ scars wide as years ringed in their bellies
of wisdom as nature sprawls dismembered.
For the lost sons whose families cried for their
children fallen blameless in untold lands:
vast roll calls of those never to return
their victories fading without hist’ry.
And for a child’s innocence crawling the
steps in memoriam her triumph
descending into the arms of bedlam.
They will grow old if we stop and listen
to the wind and to the rising water
grasping Gaia’s wisdom tight with blanched fists.
Then we’ll sing all carolling together
woven wild flowers peppering our hair
saving earth from imminent destruction
saving for our children’s children our tongues
articulating words unburden-some
our hearts all believing beneath our fear.
