Once in a village that is burning
because a village is always somewhere burning And if you do not look because it is not your village
it is still your village In that village is a hollow child
You drown when he looks at you with his black, black eyes And if you do not cry because he is not your child
he is still your child All the animals that could run away have run away
The trapped ones make an orchestra of their hunger The houses are ruin
Nothing grows in the garden
The grandfather’s grave is there
A small stone under the shade of a charred oak
Who will brush off the dead
leaves
Who will call his name for morning prayer Where will they — the ones who slept in this house and ate from this dirt — ?
“Your Village,” appears in Eyes, Stones, Louisiana State University Press, 2012. Copyright © by Elana Bell. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
