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