Olive tree still
calls the sky
from dry
ground
cayenne seas
coffee so thick I can drink it
women who work together
(the way we work together)
gave me tapestry, during war
(always during war):
I placed on my daughter's wall when she was three
like a portrait laced with green and red thread
for memory
In that same ground of sacred old stories
where poem means to aim
an ageless man
skin creased gold like farmers
I knew as a child on the tractor after school
stood beside a sheet of plastic on a stick
one small table left in tact
the children ___they've been taken
he waved his arms in the bulldozed stubble air
taken, locked
up
We've been forgotten he said
Please have some tea
My new brother near what was bayou
told me
after the storm
in the shelters people fight to move their cots
closer to each other
what we know, what we have
is community
we will stay and fight for our space
fight for our space
are we far from home
are we moving towards home
are we home yet
it's always about home
let's get it out in the open
each name, unacceptable incorrect untranslatable
name of pain
unaccounted for
borderline, travesty, occupied
shanty, refugee, abandoned, genocide
it's our work to make language
it's our work to claim
it's our work to not allow forgetting
hold the letters in every alphabet in our tongues
blankets around our lungs to warm our breath
its always about home
suddenly I cling to my messy
piles of things
its always about home
who dares deny
look the other way
where the phoenix rises
this time the fire
is a flood
this time
Kathy Engel _ September 2005
