v. Once We Were One

 

Should we have stayed at home and not thought of here?

Each question we ask on the road is answered by the echo

of our voice alone.

 

All these years of talks and laughter, what did we want

and didn’t know we can’t have it?

 

All these years to offer up our specks of life

only to be imbedded in fragile fabrics of a vast mosaic body;

 

how could they defoliate the field we live from

and talk of people caring for each other, I have no answer.

 

Should we have stayed at home and not thought of here?

 

And I paused to look for peace in the long silence

and for a moment I remembered the fields of praise

on which my umbilical cord was buried; and I saw the end

just as a straw, a feather furling slowly down to a light.

 

Should we have stayed at home and not thought of here?

 

For a moment all my tears were used up;

all I could do was use my dry eyes to draw a fabled bird

migrating away from its nest and breeds in America.

 

I can hear all broods like sparrows returning

with the common song:

 

no sweating in the dark anymore, no more dying

in the ecstasy, fumbling, floundering like a slave in fire

or drowning in the lime or choking in the crowded sea