TWO DEAD …
“soldiers are gunning us down” Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Speak through ripples/waves
In marrow they rise
Dried blood the language of the unheard
Don’t speak unless you want to hear dissent
Recede like the tide till it rolls out to sea___
A storm stirs in the bones
Returns to the rivers____
Mississippi, Nile, Euphrates
Carry debris of silence gushing the names of the dead
The mothers, the fathers, the sisters, the brothers, the children
Stand strong asking not for condemnation of the perpetrators
They ask for sound to pour like waterfalls, flood the dam
Today I drop rose petals on a grave
Today others march through the streets
Today a father speaks about how his son was shot seven times by a cop
Today I hear temblors of silence inside the earth’s faults
And when it shakes, those who have been will have wished they had never been silent
— Nancy Kaufman