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Tatalon, 1986

 

 

Bless the orange bud that blooms in the dark—

It rends the flesh of hunger

With its interminable point of sharpness,

Like candleflame that tapers off

In a cloud of soot, the point almost invisible.

The bud that blossoms from the tip of stem of metal

And tears both smile and surprise from the face

Of innocence, from the startled sleep

Of a child getting ready for school,

The adolescent roused by the mother

To do laundry or fix breakfast.

The sowing of that seed came from unknown faces

In the dark, the flowering of that death

Watered by the guttural grunts of men

And motors in the dawn, stamp of boot

On fragile door of cardboard and wood scrap,

Gleam of buckles and faint sunlight

On olive-drab and camouflage.

It is almost like nature itself, the jungle

And all its colors, the baring of fangs,

Rasp of throats, the snatch and wrestle

And pinning-to-the-ground,

The giving up of struggle by the weak.

What life prospers on borrowed ground,

Its root and limb feeble in their hold on rock

And mud, without claim of right but need,

Pursued with the stare of hunger,

Urged on with rejection without rest?

Morning showers do not muffle the cries of children,

The escape of a gasp, the stopping of a gape.

No protest is valid when the morning

Has finally blossomed from the orange bud

That grows from the stem of metal in the dark,

When it has watered its own hunger,

And the whorl of a burning has left a gash in the earth.

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c. 1986

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Of Children Dying by Gunfire
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