The end is silence

Where do the little beggars come from, mama?
Why do they operate at the crossroads?
Don't they have to go to school?
To learn math and English
or have a wonderful time with friends?

The beggars come from the sky, honey
Dropped by the typhoon
along main thoroughfares,
in front of shop windows,
or near garbage dumps

From the sky? That must be
very close to heaven
But who are their parents, mama?
Why do the old people let their children
go down to earth to sniff pollution
and taste hunger?

Have they done anything wrong
that made the parents
furious and punish them
so hard, right-a-way?

No, dear
Of course they love their children dearly
And yearn for healthy food,
clean clothes, cozy homes and colorful toys
for their treasured children

Although they live close to God up there
it's still far away from heaven, honey,
They have no power to go anywhere
Only from the vortex of the storm
all they can do is just follow where
the hurricane takes them along

Is anything we can do for them, mama?

(SILENCE)

Song of the Wind

My mother is the sky
my father is the sun
and I am the wind
I assure you I never cry
(Really? So, what about the drizzle?
Isn't it your tears sprinkling down?)

-- By Lilis Marliani

Promise of death

Dying is believing:
the young and weak
grow strong and tall as spring,
the strong and tall
grow weak and old as fall.

Dying is obeying,
for the promise of birth
bears the cleaner promise of death.

Dying is obedient belief,
a selfless total cleansing,
relinquishing the house we stocked
with our dreams,
with our nightmares
for other love.

The heiress of Caesar

Where Caesar lived
two eon years ago
dwells now
a heiress to his perished throne,
a seamstress without name
or fame,
a buried scrap of bygone glory.

But she keeps weaving on
the rainbow through which
her unborn sons and daughters
will break one day
into a hungry universe
and roam the migrant plains.

-- By Idris Kyrway (from The Book of Kyrway)