Almost sane,

sometimes,

our collective hearts
pulse to the drum
of a promise,
pounded to death
and reborn
a thousand times,

forged in the inferno of
screams and
haunted silence.

I once called
the promise "Justice",
but it lurched
far behind,
dragged the years,
slept late and
often stared,
with mechanical eyes,
at the bleeding
doves that fell
one by one
to the ground.

Justice holds
its breath
and waits for the
lace and brocade
of spring,
patient as
glaciers of stars
in the grip
of prowling limbo,

an obstinate beauty:

infinity glazed over,
loving through the darkness
where everything is an imprint
of Divinity or, perhaps, signatures
of an icy, molten, unformed

promise.

Where have you been?
What is a country worth?
Was freedom just another scam?

Who could pay
such a cosmic debt
or untangle
the knots we became?

And what about
riddles too cruel
to solve
or truth
too perfect to
make any sense
in this place?

See us,
Maker And Mover Of
Words Unseen.

Ransom the nation
waiting to breathe.


Patricia Joan Jones