Poems

Growing up in two dreams

While you talk about sleep like someone
who grew up in two dreams
my heart splits.
 
The light reflected on the wall makes words –
perhaps while I slept they appeared –
still swirling around me.
Mountains, they say
the mountains stand still
with the blood of belief.
 
Because it’s morning after all
that will shake us awake.
Earth and our birth-right
have been stolen.
 
You walk a mountain road.
A house with a smoking chimney –
like colour dispersing in water –
doesn’t tell the truth.
 
The one speaking to us
is still invisible.
Who is it?
 
History has already opened these wounds.
Fragile, the scars, thickened
with anger.
 
Our voices are our only shelter in the lit night.
Who can we turn to?
What words can we use to speak of pain,
in what language can we ask to be forgiven?
We need a clean slate,
a sunrise of words,
dawn of the soul.
 
We need the gentle home with chimney smoking.
To walk by its walls on forgiving soil.
We decide this is somewhere
we can take refuge
and fall quiet
we fall quiet