Replanted

The horizon cracked from side to side
They scoured the continent with a lash
Broken, ashes, fiery clashes

The locomotive howled into the gloom
The whip encroached, we tried to hide
Boots came knocking on my door that night

By the rhythmic rocking of a train
I was taken through, away, uprooted
They need me feeding their machine of fright

We were flesh and spinning gears
we ground, grind from meal to meal
until the days run through like ink in rain

But one day in the depth of winter
the ground trembled at a distant boom
and I saw your face and knew

In this foreign land, our hearts polluted
by making rent, maim, dismember
Our wordless leaves unfolded, grew

Then the war, risen high in all its fury
was spent; fell apart and shattered wide
We gathered sticks and scattered lives

This is a house; not yet a home
I sip a tea of embers, sinter
a stillness in this place you took me

My torn roots grow slowly in this loam
This is not the black earth I remember
I have no words here, but I can see

I heard they put some men before a jury
to judge their rotten sullied zeal
I mark the absence of some pain

Yet heed them not; I need to heal