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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA time for peace
LETTERS IN SAND
One night as pen and paper, fell freely from my hand,
I wrote our troops in finger-scrawl on a darkened shore
Then I heard sea-drumming; coming low, like a marching band,
Words were washing from my soul and rhyming by the score
Then a feather flicked my face and fell to salty sand
But the darkness grounds all birds, to nestle on the land
Perhaps a chilling wind-blast had blown that dove-fluff free,
as some bird sat sleeping on fence or telephone line.
But the moonlit beach held neither fence, nor line, nor tree:
It only offers frothing waves and winds to chill your spine
I thought of a blonde barmaid, tattooed in poetry
Gone But Not Forgotten were her words for all to see.
Perhaps the feather fell from an angel, sailing past a dune,
as forceful seas of shared shame, came washing in once more.
I think I heard last seasons song, swirling through winds tune;
while waves wept booming echoes, like distant cannon roar.
I wrote sandy prose by the light of a blood-red moon;
knowing her son was dead and he had died too soon.
Has peace become a shell-game for peasants on the beach;
or a pearl of pain painted under a mothers dress?
When will we learn that fighting puts mercy out of reach;
as it ruffles foreign feathers in a desert mess?
Will wartime propaganda be the last song we teach
to un-hatched generations paying for lies we preach?
The next morning at sunrise I sought my sandy scrawls;
All the beach let me say lay in letters that washed away.
Like some sorry marching band, as a singing angel falls;
grisly gulls pecking crabs seemed to bow and pray;
to dove duets, cooing love-songs, with their calming calls.
Planes had blown that feather free, while making troop withdrawals.
by Patrick Lancaster (AKA Jeffersons Ghost)
wellstone dem
(4,460 posts)for this powerful, beautiful poem. Thank you.
riverwalker
(8,694 posts)thank you