State Of Unknowing

Inside that State it’s dark

Blind lanterns launched across a velvet sky
Which float on fire for moments,
then what drops
The night conceals
A hundred bands of metal to the sea.
The cliff-top congregation cannot comprehend
The seal’s pierced throat.

The questions must be held down
subterfuged
-Oppressors cannot know their victims’ cries-
The nameless dead must not oppress THEIR eyes...

Streets lit by glare to hold the people in
Reveal a glare that may seek out revolt-
Even a paper passed in a hand’s clasp
speaks of hopes
No state that’s silent can endure.

This State has grown too big!
It needs too many bodies to survive;
Apportions wealth and lifetimes out-
housing and gates
Proportionate to strength,
Measures our hopes in enclaves, old folks’ homes.

It cannot know the cost of ordinary bones

Flat soldiers’ boots erase
the brave
who seek
to shout above the parapet...
mashed faces...

They taught my sweet son not to bend
Or weep his father’s death.

A family that shares its furtive courtesies

We’ll never know their purposes
Though all purport to know
The stories thrown out there
To silence doubts...
We’ll never know
Without our words
It’s best to empty minds
And comprehend the whisper of the wind,
The gentle neutral rain upon our faces,
The unseeing beauty of the moment’s lights.