Page 30 - A Qualified Acceptance of Sorrow

at night they see the golden
coins turn to grains of sand.
They feel their hunger, and despair.

Once the sun rises,
they choose again the compulsion
to swallow their golden passion.

Only a word that connects them
to their original humanity
will free them from this slavery.

9.

At a distance they seemed ordinary
white folk, for some reason
all clothed in red dresses …

As they came into focus
there was a uniformity of expression as well:
the set jaw, eyes pinched with contempt.

I saw the blood seep from sleeves
staining their hands,
saw their hems leave a trail

of blood along the earth.
Blood and soil cried to heaven
recalling the first murderer

who’d founded a city
and filled it with his contempt
for those who loved the wild land …

bequeathing his heirs his arrogance
so that they, heartless and unrepentant as well,
still secretly worshipped the power of taking life.

These killers would wander the world,
until, sickened by the relentless sensation of blood
against their skin,

they sat on the earth, and
prayed for forgiveness, prayed to begin the slow work
of true repentance…