Beyond the Smoke and the Dust
We stop at this small town,
the gateway to a great city,
beyond the cleared smoke and settled dust,
when there’s still a war going on,
with or without our attentions,
at the far corner of the world,
when colors have been applied
to the different levels of emergency
throughout the land.
Into the woods, into the fading sunlight,
Kysha is leading the way,
the leash taut with an unknown urgency.
We stumble along the narrowed paths
among the hanging branches,
come to stop at the top of a long grassy slope
overtaken by the sudden view of a lily pond.
We’ve arrived a little earlier than their season,
the water lilies are still waiting for
the touch of the brush on a distant canvas,
the rhyme of a certain poem on the poet’s mind.
We walk to the pond,
sit down,
cross our legs,
and light a little candle in our heart,
as soft as a water lily in the twilight.
ISBN 1-59661-020-4
40 pages $9