Missing the Birds

The dream-light under the shade of trees
is flecked with sorrow - it misses the birds
that are hunted down as they wend their way
back to nestling grounds.
This want to shed blood reveals itself as
a hypnotic component of man's imagination,
as natural as woman swelling and shrinking
together with the moon.

Violence thickens the air with layers of ash
and makes breathing poisonous.
The end of the millennium is behind us
but fears of great disasters persist to haunt
the earth and people speak about the Battle
of Armageddon
          
and all I am saying is true
a wind is blowing with a new ferocity
mother-milk darkens to dirt on nipples
children die in the gutter
and mirrors are frightened by our reflection
    
and if I repeat what is already known,
still I cannot stop myself from saying it once more
now it's clear I'm not a woman who belongs
to this world for from all the languages spoken
on earth, no language is mine,
no words can I find that can comfort mothers.      
    
Ah, mothers know how to inundate the soul-orbit
with love's incandescence (for don't we belong
to the human race and not the Dinosaurs'!) 
but our waywardness overwhelms them now
with sorrow   yet look 

they still pray we make amends
for how else will the creatures of this earth
reach the nestling ground of forgiveness.