Shame

Shame

(written during the bombing of Baghdad)

1

Each day the music
whether we will or no.

Outside, magnolia’s unfurling
slims the air

even now uniting the worlds we are,
one divided current,

heads devouring hearts, heads
marching backwards as to war:

“Hallelujah, glory, gory, hallelujah.”
“Holy holy holy,” saith the wind.

Shame falls out of the sky.
Crash helmets, gas masks, tanks,

hungry voices of children in the loaded air.
Who will heal the frightened enemy—“ourself?”

Stockmarket graphs—barometers of greed.
“Shock and awe” of terror’s inhuman blast

unveils no weapons of mass destruction
but our own.

2

Across from the Langley Colossus,
tranced faces munch burgers
while Baghdad blazes
on screens one and two,
the hockey game on screen three.

Thank God it’s finally Friday
and off to the movies for something
vicariously violent or
maybe a “chick flick”
to distract from the horror that is
our daily bread.


3

Here on the lawn, Magnolia, lover, beloved,
shudders to her roots

knowing April will swell in her again,
releasing love’s ample white blossoms

once more into the unreceiving atmosphere.


Susan McCaslin

Posted over on Poets Against the War