Still, We Hope

When I close my eyes,
I hear the sound of gushing blood;
the wind on his back was like whips
that splashed off the pieces of his flesh.
I could see it torn open,
a pool of wet red paint,
a purple gash, 
fresh, raw, sweaty and breathless;
he gasped, winced and cringed;
his body was no longer his
after the hooded men ripped his clothes
in the pale light of the evening.
When morning broke, the bombs
did not break their fire,
but spat out dark smoke
over the dead city.
Men carried their hands on their heads,
eyes popped at the sky,
faces enmeshed in tears;
the bleakness of the moon was glaring.

We were rushing home,
to get away from all this,
the smoke that engulfed our city.
The bullets flew around like birds.
fires erupted over our house,
the inferno of burning papers,
my father's qualifications for life,
became piles of ashes in the empty street,
and unlettered pillars of sweat
swooned over them with a victory grin.
Still, I saw the vultures of this apocalypse,
their long tongues dragged on the ground
without the satisfaction of despair.

When I closed my eyes,
when I sleep, when I dream,
I carried this sting in my stomach
like constipation, and ulcers
the holes in my father's body
are everywhere like it was today,
and the loneliness in his heart
will linger until his death.
There were unfilled gaps, 
chasms of sorrow,
unfulfilled hopes of restitution,
drowned in the silence of birds,
lingers like the sea turning glass,
like water turning into blood
or milk turning sour.
My father sought a bird’s nest
to hide his head,
as though this misfortune
was his doing, his error,
as though his birth was reason
for this visitation of sorrow.

Then he looked into the distance,
a smell of water,
a rush of fragrance of lilies,
and daffodils and roses,
a slow-gathering of lavenders, 
he knew spring was coming,
flowers were blooming,
and soon, the leaves of irises
would be flooded by rain,
storm and flood
and the mourning owl
is turning into a morning eagle.