AFTER THE BATTLE

The battle raged till sunset.

In darkness they lay themselves down

to sleep, the living and the dead.

Searchlights swept.

Dark tatters

flapped in dusty wind.

From a high casement,

notes of a nuptial waltz.

From ditches, pale

corpse sheen.

A steel firefly settled on the square.

Pylades emerged, Clytemnestra,

Aegisthus. In the gaze of the pilot

I glimpsed Orestes staring skyward.

Then the searchlights’ lethal glare

swallowed all.

Beneath the star of death

we went on living, gnawing bitter bread.

Our dreams sprang up

a sea of leaden groves.

Foul, thick light.

Days of mire and insects.

Insects entered our houses,

took over our beds.

They claimed our graveyards,

our ancestors.

In the bowels of earth,

in the cities of Hell,

they built mausoleums.

The iris of water

gives birth to the sun.

I offer my voice,

my eyes, my flesh.

In the language of the hawk

I speak to you.

In the rattle of the woodpecker,

the sparrow’s flight.

Their troops marched in

through the north gate. Then

the rituals of surrender:

flags, keys, women.

The enemy were great in number.

We called them thieves of an epoch.