The dirty light of day

returns to witness

the smoke rising

from the villages

whose ruin should

belong to another age

but greets the tempered light today.

 

Hatred has done his neat handiwork

and the mirky light shows

desolation where once

the laughter of children

echoed across the mundane

of village life and domestic chores.

 

And in the spaces that were

so replete with community

there now lie bodies strewn

as the sculptures of war,

and half visible in the smoky haze

of death’s new morning praise.

 

But none are left to put

the dead inside their graves

and weep for them and grieve

for life and culture lost,

in this insane cleansing

that all too easily

will be forgot.

 

20/9/2017