Beslan
Imagination cannot process fact,
but reels and shrieks and weeps
at silence wrought by grief
beyond belief. There are no words
for this, and in the psyche of this town,
no peace.
First day of school, the pupils slain
even in their loved ones' gaze:
beloved forms and faces
arms can no longer embrace.
City of Angels, where the children
lie with childhood's anamneses:
fuzzy bears, bright-painted toys
the helpless gestures of bereavement.
I cannot grasp accounts I read,
and yet I know they speak the truth:
a mother's last words to her son -
'I am not afraid to die.
Remember this -'
a trice before a bullet stops her breath.
A grandmother keeps saying,
'Don't you worry, it will be all right',
throughout three scorching days
of thirst, the acrid whiff of cordite.
The lad she sheltered at her side
is haunted by her bloodstained corpse;
the phantom pain of splintered bones
reminds him he survived.
Child revenants appear by night
craving a caress. A dead boy
whispers to his pregnant mother:
'Buy a dress...'
Each September, when the flocks
of summer children reconvene, bearing
flowers for their teachers,
loosing white balloons, the spirits
of slain classmates, mothers, sisters,
brothers hover near, above the granite
plinths and aisles, while parents
embrace emptiness grown heavy
with the passing years, and orphaned
children mourn afresh.
For them there is no luxury of respite,
no release. Where loved ones lie
the angels weep; their spirits fly
to the bereft.