Your Village

Once in a village that is burning

     because a village is always somewhere burning

 

And if you do not look because it is not your village

     it is still your village

 

In that village is a hollow child

     You drown when he looks at you with his black, black eyes

 

And if you do not cry because he is not your child

     he is still your child

 

All the animals that could run away have run away

     The trapped ones make an orchestra of their hunger

 

The houses are ruin      Nothing grows in the garden

     The grandfather’s grave is there      a small stone

 

under the shade of a charred oak      Who will brush off the dead

     leaves      Who will call his name for morning prayer

 

Where will they—the ones who slept in this house and ate from this dirt—?