Nostalgia

They would feel it, every new moment- 
the echoes of who they use to be
 
and what was once theirs-
now dirty sheets caught in a dark tree.

Everyday, the black river rolls by in  blue remembrance
and lilies float and drown in the burning stream.

Here, the air hurts in the light of a browning sun
and the stars are hidden in the halogen night.

In the long black walk from house to road to church
roses will fall, die, pierce their bare feet, even before 
the sooty Jesus suspended on the muddy base.

The pain of knowing there was once a home-
land kills them little by little every day.

There was once a greening summer
where rain smelled of honey and pomegranates

where apples tasted true and sweeter
and not the dull bitter of a metallic earth.

But they know that their razed homeland 
cannot be reseeded or harvested.

The murderers have destroyed everything,
even every bit of their  history.

They must live in the history of here, must
exist suspended between reality and sleep,

the nostalgia of closing their eyes  
and trying  to reach back home,

through the biter herbs of knowing 
they didn’t die, just survived.