April 14, 2003
|
The sun of last summer shone upon war, our towns and villages consumed in flame; racked and tortured, our people and our land, led, hounded, forced into black doom and ruin, a nation torn, with faces grim and grave, sowing the whirlwind, reaping the harvest. The wheat still stands in fields that no hands harvest, the fields devastated by passage of war; many a procession comes to a new grave, dug to receive a young life perished in the flame to consummate a nation's rush to ruin, the flame-death of what was a flame-born land. It burst phoenix-like from ashes, this our land, this not the first time. Death often the harvest of each new rising, and then into ruin and darkness again. The harsh winds of war fanned again and again the passion's flame, and then buried it into yet another grave. Only another in a long line, this grave upon whose brink now stands my burning land will serve to bury once again the flame and once more Death will reap his dreadful harvest. But this time it is a never-ending war, leading nowhere but into burning ruin. And if all I see ahead is black ruin then our destiny is indeed bleak and grave, hemmed in as we are from all sides by our war, the war that's tearing apart our land. Bitter and long remembered this harvest, so much kept hot in hatred's burning flame. It is never going to scour clean, this flame— it leads only to destruction, ash and ruin, and fields which no-one is left to harvest will turn memories of still unborn children grave and will poison the people of this land. Such is the legacy of brothers' war. And when we harvest young lives into the grave the scorching flame leaving all a smouldering ruin, we have a dead land—a forever living war. · · · · · ·
Poetry on Swans Alma Hromic on Swans (with bio). Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this article on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first paragraph or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work without the expressed written authorization of Swans. This material is copyrighted, © Alma A. Hromic 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. |
This Week's Internal Links
Simplicity: The Absence of Complexity - by Gilles d'Aymery
A Letter To Margaret Atwood - by Eli Beckerman
They're Building A Pipeline - by Scott Orlovsky
Heresy! - by Richard Macintosh
Will The Favorite Go The Distance? - by Philip Greenspan
Taxman - by Michael Stowell
What? Me worry? - by Milo Clark
Naguib Mahfouz, "Midaq Alley" - Book Review by Louis Proyect
Iraq's Economic Problems - by Barrett Brown
The Lost America Of Love - Poem by Kahnupad Haider
Hidden Hearts And Blood-Flecked Minds - Poem by Richard Macintosh