Guerrilla country

The title poem from my recent poetry collection. (Available from Flight of the Dragonfly Press.)

 Guerrilla country

You climb the final rise, and reach the ridge.
A winter sunlight catches ribs and hollows
rippling out across a world that’s green— 
and bleached where pain has washed the land in waves.

Touch hands with those who made these marks with stones
or picks or ploughs; with fighters, fearful how 
their day would end; and those who made a mark 
by ending here—in traces we can’t see.

The ground’s as new as its most recent rain,
or wind that last blew soil grain on grain;
and old as stifled cries of children hidden
in folds, or homes on hilltops, built and burned.

Be still, and listen where the quieter traces 
too, of play and laughter can be heard.