end and beginning

After each war
somebody has to clear up
put things in order
by itself it won't happen

No kidding. You should see my office.

Somebody's got to push
rubble to the highway shoulder
making way
for the carts filled up with corpses.

We've got to clean up so we can clean up.

This is not photogenic
and takes years.
All the cameras have left already
for another war.

It's not right, I tell you. The element of forgotteness. Our stupid tendencies to become jaded with life. Real life. Real life in contrast to real death. And we've forgotten. Taken the shot. View it as innocuous now.

Somebody, broom in hand,
still recalls how it was,
Someone whose head was not
torn away listens nodding.

So, you think I'm talking about war. Well, it's more self-centered than that really. I'm talking about how my life and identity seems so bound with life and death right now. The death of my identity as idependent--self-sufficient--as possessing a last name of my very own--of doing what I want when I want to. Less than two weeks and something wonderful emerges, and at the same time, so many things I think about myself will change.

I am Someone, nodding...listening...yet I nod with a new head. The first one's been blown off. Wifedom is a weird thing. Such a lovely, kind existence but for the violence in becoming one.

In the grass that has covered
effects in causes
somebody must recline,
a stalk of rye in in the teeth,
ogling the clouds.

(words by Wislawa Szymborska in italics)