Caitlin Essenburg Poet Free verse

Requiem of the Rising Sun: March 27

I don’t know how to pray
When everyday is the same
How many times do I lift my soul
To tell you of the thousands of your children
Dead
Missing
Homeless
My bleeding brain, rubbed raw from hours of pleading is resigned, capitulated, ready to say
God bless everyone
And have done.
 
You know what bless means.
You know who everyone is.
            God bless everyone
            God bless Japan.
 
God bless the babies crying in crowded shelters
And the mothers trying to quiet them.
God bless the fathers struggling to go on
And the children who play in the dirt and sleep in the dark.
God bless Japan.
 
Bless the workers
Looking in the rubble for breathing corpses
Breathing your love into the silence.
 
God bless the ones stopping the leak
Not knowing which button to push
            Which cord to cut
            Which puddles spell death.
 
God bless everyone who turns out a light.
Those leaving, and bless those who stay
            With fear streaking silently down their cheeks.
 
God bless everyone trying to remember
And those trying to forget.
God bless them as the scan lists of names
And squeeze their broken hearts back in proud, unbreakable spirits.
 
God bless everyone.
God bless Japan.

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Black Eyed Susan April 14, 2011 at 4:36 AM A nice tribute to the people of Japan and those trying to help them. I thought "Squeeze their broken hearts back in proudk unbreakable spirits" was a powerful line.