Saturday, December 10, 2011

Back to the War


When she left at dawn, no one saw 
The black-clad bereaved old woman 
Carrying a knife, a loaf of bread,
And a small straw mat 
On which they found her babbling 
At dusk on a scarred, bare knoll
Overlooking the pockmarked, 
Snow-covered landscape, the still
Uncut bread by her side.
 
 

3 comments:

  1. A beautiful sentence. I held my breath. And then hung in the air... like that knife.

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  2. A little mystery with a great mystery wrapped up in it. In the uncut loaf of bread, I think. No words for it, but all your words point in its direction. Beautiful....

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  3. Thanks you two--it's no mystery that most of the time the mystery is in how the poet gets written!
    A radically different and much smaller version of this one was written in Greek some years ago and when I came upon it last week, I decided to translate it into English and in the process, it turned into an entirely different poem.

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