Bethink

It's cigarette smoke that hangs on clothes and walls

Every man and woman burned by their neighbors

Those who hide their faith, just as they hide their face

Sad writers buried in an all night binge of alcohol and the words of the dead

It's the unexpected ascension of spirit

A farmer who can raise an animal and crop, but never a family

The bleeding heart of a generation

A poet from Lisbon who speaks in disquiet

A trench of young boys in a bacciferous field

It's Tolstoy writing War and Peace

A million men who miss their mothers

A further million whose mothers will not see them

The early morning train and every scrutator in wait as if judging the soul in transit

It is all the worlds noise, drowning out the flailing arms and cries of reason