"Make Known To Me"

Make Known To Me

The only color that
national flags fly:
the red one,
so relentlessly,
no escaping.
At the priests’ cabal,
he felt the
forbidden temperature,
he felt that they were
out to get him,
he felt that they
intended him to burn.

“Be practical, my brother,”
they said, “listen to us.”
But they only spoke of
a Father, never of a
Mother’s love
like burned ruins—
which they set on fire
with their own hands—
across the moss,
a fountain in the
now-burning sunlight.

I ask you, “Can all but a few
of us survive, my brother?
Think of all we
see from here,
the square,
the crying babies,
the interrogating policemen.
Then think before.
It was from awhile ago, this sound,
before men’s treaties,
before adventures, appearances."

The Universe so created
a presence,
a point unknown,
some other somewhere.
And this is what it comes to:
standing at a dented gate,
waiting,
sprinkled at the
end of the day.
Notice those overly zealous,
fleeing through me, to the
memorial just beyond—
and do not follow them.

©JEF 2010