04-07-2024, 04:02 AM
Words for Home-Leaving
Say Shoah, Nakba, exile, Exodus–
brief words for losing lands once home to us:
reality or tales grown fabulous
told to inflame a child, the credulous?
Some victories leave skull-hills of defeat
while others, merely feared, panic retreat;
the driving-out of peoples, incomplete,
or total’s neither cleansing nor discrete.
Success in far-flung exile softens wrath
while living near the victors lights a path
to skulking vengeance: rage and madded math
claim eye for tooth, blood-rivers for bloodbath.
[rhymed quatrains]
Say Shoah, Nakba, exile, Exodus–
brief words for losing lands once home to us:
reality or tales grown fabulous
told to inflame a child, the credulous?
Some victories leave skull-hills of defeat
while others, merely feared, panic retreat;
the driving-out of peoples, incomplete,
or total’s neither cleansing nor discrete.
Success in far-flung exile softens wrath
while living near the victors lights a path
to skulking vengeance: rage and madded math
claim eye for tooth, blood-rivers for bloodbath.
[rhymed quatrains]
Non-practicing atheist