A cool breath of morning mist lays itself across the water,
where pathways break the wooded edge, it probes the leafy tracks.
Green and dappled reds announce the warming rays,
rustling snouts and gentle song rise to fill the dawning cracks.
Beyond this unseen miracle we shuffle ourselves awake,
inviting news and noise, we break the fragility of nature’s spell.
Unforgiving, we chase away the beauty of our absence,
thoughtlessly we turn what seemed a heaven into something more like hell.
Over the shoulder of Turkey
down through the Caspian Sea,
South across Muscat and Aden
Westward toward Djibouti…
Then fold through the Red Sea to Cairo
across Sinai where Moses did lead,
then on to the back gates of Rafah
where Nomads eternally bleed…
Tie the knot off in Tehran
strangle the land till it’s dry,
leave there, what’s then left of Man
that all those who follow, know why.
When it was over
the guns were in our hands,
when it was over
our tanks were in their lands.
When it became history
the markets redrew our graphs,
when it became history
our media moguls wrote their epitaphs.
When war was still a raging
the dead inflamed our hate,
when war was still a raging
our mercy came too late…