What More Can Happen?

like grey portents,
deep furrows glisten on the brow
of a dark foreboding,
even the wind is uneasy today
wrapped tightly around nameless headstones,
what more can happen,
as if we didn’t stop counting the dead a long time ago,
as if we don’t perjure ourselves every time we sigh,
everyone has lost something or someone,
everyone blames something and someone,
what more can happen,
kings are crowned by ballots and bullets,
heads are bowed by words and swords,
we swallow the dread like unsaid prayers
and the hate seeps out of us like sweat, clogging the emptiness,
till even the gods can’t see us through the fog,
eagles that pecked at rainbows beg for rancid grain,
and yet the omens flood dry channels where rivers used to run
as if the old dead have risen to bury the new,
and you know it is not over yet,
you know what has begun will not rest,
how did we learn to bear so much,
why did we learn to fear so much,
remember how the hills trembled and the sea
turned its guilty face
when love departed,
remember how we picked sides when both were right
and both were wrong
and love departed,
the signs appear like perforations on a brittle horizon,
what more can happen.