took to finish the Boston Marathon
or spent wailing and washing bloody shirts in a creek
or waited outside the graveyard for all the black umbrellas to unfurl and fly away like ravens
No matter if you were in the crowd watching when Madame La Guillotine sang her aria through encore after encore after bloody encore
or if you were the one kneeling with their neck under the blade
or if you were the one who dropped that blade—
No matter how many times you walked barefoot in the rain
or challenged the white-crested warriors riding in on the surf – you, armed only with a slab of wood and your own balance
or flew into the eye of the sun with borrowed falcon feathers and wings of wax
No matter if you marched in the vanguard of the invasion
or if you were the rearguard on the retreat
no matter if you huddled in terror under occupation or went out by night to slit throats in defense of your people
No matter if the sun spurned you and dropped you like a stone into an uncaring ocean
No matter if the moon wept over your grave and then threw himself into a well and drowned for sorrow, and I still see his face when I lean over and look
No matter if the stars shook the tree branches so hard they broke and dropped – and we all thought it was just wind, storm wind, this fury of stars
still you were only human, flesh of my flesh and blood of my bone, and I loved you.
Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside
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