What Is (War)
And if all those who meet or even
hear of you become witness to what you are —
a white country of blight beneath the last snows of
spring. Could we remain quiet on earth
and bear it, the war we make inside
what is — it’ s a long time to be here, to be still,
to feel the rot inside now — bone-scrap, char, sheets of stars
at the edge of a field where we are once again
taken from ourselves. Could we remain here,
witness to grief, one last bright dire call-and-reply,