Lips of a Nest

A war comes and never translates

a seed into a sapling;

it leaves behind 

a bridge with broken ribs

on a half-dead river 

filled with debris of death

a war comes and never translates 

love songs of nomads

sung on the banks of a river

leaving their indelible footprints 

of mankind on dunes of sands

it never recalls the boats 

from a civilization that sailed 

through a stream

a war comes and never translates 

paddy into rice, 

wheat into bread

it’s against granaries and ovens;

it’s against lovely fingers kneading flour

a war comes and never translates 

anything but the whimsical accounting 

of hate, greed and fear into weapons

a war forgets to see a nest hanging 

from the broken ribs of a bridge 

to narrate a tale: “there’s life 

to translate the present into possibilities,

there’s a bird to invite explorers

to feel the breaths of a civilization”

such anonymous tales indulge and play 

with the strings of life

lips of a nest sing 

a song unrecorded in History 

and bury the uncounted drum beats 

of war frenzy

lips of a nest, hanging 

from the broken ribs of a bridge, 

sing a different song that blows 

with each gust of war-bruised wind.