Yoke (Concept of a Nation)

(To the Lebanese Bloggers of the War)

Hunched
in our corners of the earth,
holding down the fort,
pretending to do something.

Garbling
a code of song,
of longings of ten years ago,
and of love

to this concept of a nation,
this bowl of fire
in the guts.

This resonance of a woman’s voice
reverberating in the heat;
this prayer of desperation
that shudders under the familiarity of death;
this face, grown weary from
this concept of a nation.

The rhythm of days
has grown syncopated
in the largesse of your breath.

You, inhabiting the rubble,
the ghost streets and the night,
the night pregnant with the silence
of those who weren’t there.

You, parting the weight of the air
laden with age,
with truncated years.

You, carrying the clot of a promise
between your teeth
like a mother cat carries her young.

Lift the yoke of what remains
and trudge
_____forward, somewhere
the earth will exhale
and flatten her bust for you.

(Originally posted on August 29, 2006)