Author Archives: maryfeatherstone

You broke silence to speak
Through people
From the wrong side of the tracks
Using foreign words we can’t make out …

Tu as brisé le silence
Par la bouche de gens
Peu fréquentables, de langue barbare
Que nous ne cernons pas

Leaves with brown paper veins
Have succumbed to dry earth
And the neglect of the sad
For months touched only
By the movement of dust
In the rays of an improbable sun

Hope hung heavy
When the world closed down

Your name weighs heavy on the tongue, some days
It has been taken hostage by a foreign power
And rendered unpronounceable
Light years away from those simple lines
Traced in Aramaic on red sand
That say, without pretension, ‘I am here’