Terror Remembered

09 May 2021

https://poems.culturing.net/2021/05/terror-remembered/

I.

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

We who have known terror must know love,
from the hearts of those who died and killed,
from the souls they willed to live,
and from the dreams that spilled
on every bloodstained street
while we with banners blazing terror
forgot love.

We must know of love
if we are ever to forgive ourselves,
or ever to again lift up those banners
which to many once meant hope,
and still mean something (this, here, now,
is where old plants become new soil)
and with this toil we must know love,
this loving toil of generations,
for the burden never lessens
but the joy arrives with spring.

We who know of terror
must plant love in fields
once sown with mortal error,
and if joy comes in the morning
it will shock us,
but we must not let it stop us.

Joy is the reminder
that all things, from nothing, journey thence,
and we who have known terror
must know joyful toiling love.

Enough of burning buildings,
and enough of bloody deserts.

We know love.
We will not live for less again.

II.

But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish, and it will find other and worse means for its support.

Burke
We live here, slowly,
on these ashes.

What can grow here?

One wonders
how much Abu Ghraib remains,
how much the screams have done their work
and keep on working,

But one never wonders,
oh my soul,
that life goes on.

That is for another place and time,
across some ocean,
on some barren rock
where men and what remains
are left to speculation.

You and I live here,
and we must grow things from these ashes,
if not only to have grown them,
but because we otherwise
must fear what grows unhindered.

So kill the weeds,
the poison leaves,
the ash-plants, naked, dancing on the hill,

and scatter seeds
for fruit and flower,
pleasing sights,
yet good for food.

Remember this place, though, child.
and do not dwell here for too long.

III.

The usurpation...will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it.

Burke
Terror is terrible,
on this we agree,

But why have we been terrible?

Perhaps it is the proximity of conflict,
the inevitable germination
on both sides.

Or was it usurpation?

Or just another slough
of body becoming body?

We are not like the stars,
we are too wet,

And we must find within ourselves,
that something, turning,

that holds them apart.