Veiled crowds and peacekeeping sounds.

The deaf lay their ears
to the ground
and we are numb to the rooster's defeated cry.
Our numbers drop, the darkness deepens
and we duck as the ravens fly
over us, eyeing our spines
dropping like the sun over the dusk.

We were once:
fresh faced boys and girls
entangled in this fight,
believing in our right
to claim foreign words.
Boys - with eyes like the ocean and freckled forewarms and
Girls- who chased fireflies, deep into the night, not for the sake of capture
but because they reminded our eyes of light.

Now we fall like wounded soldiers
to our faces in the vally of the shadow of this city,
searching the ground for the roots
of those old abstract truths
that once
dried our weeping eyes and
offended the broken-record mindset of our desert forefathers.
Such words not resound as whispers
in the foreign winds.

So now our roots force their way
into the ground, where
the saints lay on their backs, screaming,
"WHERE ARE YOU?"
to the endless sky

and the searchlights in the tall darkness
shine, as their reply.