Our silence

the ground feeds us the song of the spun seasons.
The countrywide fire raze through the cocoon

of the many voices that we call home. it is there
we carry, all the dead, all the harmattan seeds

bouying the waves of bird wings fleeing the opera
of silence. it is there we roll the mat into the maw

of godless yawn, like yam heads, we plant headstones
to count the teeth of war. where the footprints

of leaf boats sail into sunbeams still reeling
from the brightly lit fingers of missiles are,

you will find the baby toes of flowers fluttering
out of the miserly dirt, eager like any child to play

with bullets, roll with tank wheels, dangle from the lip
of hellfire. The soil is soft with sin, thick like black

flies, the heat curling from its tongue like a pipe
smouldering with the ashen remains of many forgotten

names. where are our brothers & sisters? for widows
in weeds weeding the plots of husbands whose

uncovered faces or porous chests grow garlands that
little girls learn to turn into crowns, there

& here is the same. we collude with heaven to weep
& wipe the traces of the crime & the trees carry

the canary to where the gong dances like fireflies
pushing the flesh of night into an artificial dawn.

let us turn our faces to the wall, fill our ears
with candle wax & say, nobody is gone, no one is lost.

let us be mute like water inside ears, stirring drum
into the hollow cacophony of an empty theatre

& if there are crosses, we did not stab his side
or put the nails, we did nothing, so let us be.

---

📸: pixabay

---

Yours always,
Osahon (warpedpoetic)