Remembrance

Why is it that we learn nothing from war and genocide?

Are we to be remembered
not so much as composers of music, as artists, as builders,
but as a species of warriors
with a collective psyche of hatred and revenge,
a species which destroyed one another, and one another's cultures,
and even the earth, with impunity?

Would it not be sweeter
to be remembered as a genus of light-bearers,
one which loved and rendered unto others
only things born of goodness?

The Unknown Child
Luanda, Angola 1995

Did no one cover your nakedness,
small boy, small fallen angel,
bent beneath the heavy wings of war?

How did she die, your mother?
Was she the one who fell by the roadside,
when the many were fleeing the attack on Huambo?

Was she the one who stood on a landmine in the field,
blown apart and unto the winds,
away from you?

Was she the one the soldiers took away in the night
or did you just loose her in the crush,
when the armies opened fire across Kuito?

Did no one lift you, hold you up,
unknown boy,
in the rain, in the traffic, in Luanda?

Did no one notice this holy moment
of hunger, of cold,
of the human heart longing for love?

Did no one hear that the mission bells were silent,
and that all you wanted
was the smallest of things?

Where are you now,
unknown child?
Did you find some place to go?