Monday, March 26, 2012


Grass Still, Growing

I.

At night I fall asleep dreaming of
Good green grass growing
Between the
cracks in the
stones of the stairs
Leading up to the
Sunlight-white Cathedral

Where a man was martyred
For choosing to stay
Among the people
He loved and lived for
As they tore themselves apart

Though the bullet took his body
From the shadows of those
Walls now a little off white
His spirit stayed
Moving in hearts and story

That grass still grows there
Between broken stones

II.

The Maya are massing
The Maya are massing
No longer in churches brought from
Somewhere better than here—Spain
But in the jungles behind their eyes
That will no longer be tamed and contained
Like a fly in a jar

No list of nameless men posing in
portrait frames of
presidency can
stop the green grass from growing

Boots kick dust
Marching where grass once grew
Boots snap sticks
Break bones
Bang backs
They are gathering the Maya to
quickly make them no more
huddled in a group
it takes less bullets
The Mayans have been massed
The Mayans have been massacred
Some half-dead
Buried with the rest

The restless guerilla gangs growing
Between sweeps of righteous right-wing death squads
Still clinging to rule
The land where brother sights brother with
Barrels loaded and fires hot led
Felt in the eyes of the dead dying under
Red soil made rich for roots to delve in

And yes, that grass still grows there

III.

I stood on that staircase of stone broken
Knowing nothing of the hunger and hatred
That molested the gray matter of their minds
Until the bones of their skulls burst
With the resounding cacophony of war

But I stood in the silence that followed
And heard the laughter of a little girl echo from
The halls of that once hellish cathedral
And felt the smooth sweet grass sprout and tangle
Like the words of a poems born between
The world we see
And the world we know should be

I dream of green grass growing

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