Another mother's son (work in progress)

(The anti-war theme comes back to me again and again, as I watch films, read novels or follow the news. Yes, human beings have a hard time learning from the past, and the powers that be are blinded by an insane logic that they are not willing to break with.  So here we go, again...)

i.

 

Privilege of the women and children, to carve their way to

the border, through snowbanks or alongside the cars stopped out

along the freezing highways. They trudge on, too tired and hungry

to let the memory of home blaze a hole through their hearts. Some

have left behind husbands, fathers, or sons of sixteen still

meant to be carrying schoolbooks, sneaking first kisses

behind broken-down sheds,   or under the yielding windows of

abandoned warehouses.   

 

In the springtime,  tearful mothers

will be gathering flowers.

 

ii.

The walls have come down, so we see right straight through,

to hallways, to stairwells, to busted wiring,

 the apocalyptic version of an architect’s model:  

inner workings, the plan,  guts to reveal.

Before our very eyes,  an interrupted logic –

 that which was once the tender or lively nest where

a family gathered, where neighbors broke bread, where

one spouse was tired and the other, wanting, 

 where siblings bickered over whose turn it was

 to do the dishes.

Now, a reporter carves her way through the rubble:

this here was a bicycle, that, a dashboard,

 and there, in a pile,  lies a broken camera,

a bullet-riddled backpack

one half of a helmet.

 

In the springtime, tearful sisters

will be gathering flowers.

 

 

iii.

a couple heads out onto the road.  they head for the border

with no baggage but a little mutt with the name of a girlchild

  bundled into a shawl, curled  into the arms of the young man, almost

a boy. his girlfriend tells us: the soldiers came knocking three times.

each time they told us, you keep your mouths shut, don’t tell we were here,

pointing their guns to her temples, pushing him to the ground, mortifying

the elders, making off with the last loaf of  bread.

 

In the springtime, tearful brothers

will be gathering flowers.

 

 

iv.

sometimes bad news travels quickly.  but it can – also - not come, or drag along

on its own wretched time, crawling on its belly like a wounded puppy

or lost at sea like a message in a bottle.   airwaves interrupted.  telegraph  down.

in tenuous silence. you might also open the wrong letter, or take the wrong phone call. 

or stubbornly insist that void is nothing more than a sputtering battery.

a heart gone missing can sometimes return.

 

in the springtime,  tearful mothers will be gathering flowers.

 

© 2022miriam adelman