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Sestina of the Tokhang: Blood and Memory

Because we live here we share memory.                                

At home or across the sea, we have the same blood             

Rippling in our veins, the same dream                                              

Throbbing in our brains, in our bones time’s                        

Corpuscles are born, not the white seeds of death:                           

We grow where we live, we cannot be refugees.                    

 

In our own yard or hearth we are not refugees                     

But blooms of earth, each life the fruition of memory.                     

In each other’s bosom we cannot plant death’s                     

White seed that shall devour or burst the blood;                   

Without proof of sin or threat the other’s time                                 

We cannot cease, another’s doom we must not dream.        

 

Shared and equal, without exclusion, our highest dream      

Is the good of all and one: we shall make no refugees                      

From the boon and bounty of kindly, unbridled time.                       

Sinner or suspect is always innocent first: the memory        

We want to leave our children, not gratuitous blood            

And the executioner’s impunity: O reign of death.                 

Who, by what human law is guilt decided and death             

Imposed? Only by the court of human laws, the dream        

Of human equality, by which no precious blood                    

Is shed with impunity: such as no native is a refugee                        

In hearth or earth: the heart has no harsh memory.            

In the common dream of good we make golden time.                      

 

Thus our common dream is no waste of time,                                  

The expedient no cause or excuse for willful death,              

Human right no hindrance nor lapse of memory.                 

By law and good we part the dark and build our dream,      

No feet are splayed in dark alleys, the poor no refugees       

From power, the Lawless Hand in lust for blood.                 

 

By our passion for good, in our vision we shed no blood,     

Not for the State to defend itself, nor extend its time.                      

May not our mother’s grief exile us, wretched refugees        

From the Lawless Hand: O thoughtless reign of death,                    

We shall use reason and right to sustain our dream;                       

Light, compassion’s clarity, shall reign in our memory.       

 

Because we have words we shed no blood. Our dream                      

Entwines, binds us. From Lawless Death we shall not                      

Be refugees. We shall prevail in time and memory.              

 

 

9 August 2016

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