Justice

The stench of oranges and coffee, birds

insisting on their ancient right to speak

conspire to bring the morning to the new

self and drag the I to the slaughter bench

of day. The old self died in the night where

all cows are black. Grey on grey did violence

to the life of yesterday; history

arrived on a white horse in the twilight

and trampled many a pretty flower.

And so the self, crushed beneath the weight

of eons, sought justice in a dreamless

sleep. But justice was a dream and remained

a dream, a not-yet calling with silence.

This justice is at one remove, hiding

among the colours of a rainbow arc.

But monochrome headlines of the morning

impede the coming, bringing different

hues to the breakfast table. Clouds over

Mont Ventoux add to the distance between

the white and black of a Manichean

world and colours of justice yet to come.

Poetic incantations cannot still

the sense of impending dark; no poet

bring the self to glory from a mountain

peak when nature and history conspire

to crush and kill. White butterflies beat breath

against the dying skin; and in the depth

of the woods an owl spreads her tattered wings

against the waning day. The I sits

in Scandinavian silence waiting

in hopeless hope for the justice to come.