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GONE

My eyes follow the particles reflecting the sun.
The dust and the debris shoot up and up,
And then thinning and descending, no longer as one.
The debris I now see as stones and woodand my cup.
Only two minutes before I had left it there,
On the table where I sit with my brother, side by side.
Where is he now? Not here, only the cup we share.
Where is my brother in the dust that settles far and wide?

The guns are noisy but receding now.
We are sitting there, my brother and me together.
We pour some milk, from our only cow.
It will help us forget the absolute terror.
We feel it as bullets whistle and thud.
Into our house they come, fast and lethal.
We can't escape. Outside in the dirt and mud,
The soldiers, the guns, and see the people fall.

It is our home, our only shelter, and now it's gone.
Our family share the meagre subsistence.
Why us? Why fight? We have done no wrong.
We only want to live and scratch an existence,
And work the land our fathers tilled.
Now ravished bare by machines of sin.
Where is my bother? Was he killed?
The dust that sparkles in the sun must be him.

Learn more about this author, Dorothy Skinner.
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