Being A Witness
Concerns sit out there
on the periphery,
the suffering and misery of wars,
deaths by disasters be it
by natural or human causes,
the reckless diminution
of forests -
all creep like shadows
across the face of the earth.
What can I do
but be a witness
and add a frail voice
to a powerless chorus
calling out from under the heel
of wealth and might -
to be labelled
a soft centered dreamer
of dreams long abandoned
in favor of the more
popular cult of the self's
omniscience.
I find a place somewhere
in the stillness of an evening
and thought by thought, try
to dismantle the pretenses
of who I am
and in that cleared arena
invite the good to speak
and make room for the cries
of the afflicted to rise up
from out of the earth.
I do not know whether
their voices will be heard
or, like sounds carried
on the winds,
slowly exhaust and disperse
into the distances
of an evening
and the greater universe
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