Dumping Grounds

Where are you?
Why are we so much this way?
Why are we floating in rivers of our own blood?

The sky is blue
There is water over there
I am walking barefoot in thorns

This place of extinction
Dumping grounds
Embracing love and forgiveness
Our dark history

Shall I deny my truth?
Shall I bury my heart in the sand?
Shall I throw my children in the river
            to save them from the coming horrors?
Shall I hold my perpetrators to the mirror?

What inner reserve incites scaling
These nightly wails
Peeling flakes from screams shot to the stars
No balm for shredded fingernails
Clawing at weeping rainbows

Here is my voice:
            Crawling up the mountain of my heart, removing silence.
Here is my song:
            Lowering into the well of my love, gripping tools of hope
            Scraping the mold off our dark history.
Here is my resilience:
            Lighting a raging fire among the timbers of my compassion.

 My limbs may be shackled by grieving
Pursued by sniffing hounds of tradition
But my mind is awake for leaving
Indestructible under pounding hooves
And I can sing
And I shall sing
Into your ears
Wherever you are.

Copyright © 2014 James Lawer