riders of the twilight

In our sleep
and in our waking,
the dust and ash
still settle.

Sirens wailing and belching
are cousins
of the sirens that responded
on that morning,
when blue sky
was replaced by billowing sorrow.

The clouds came low
dust bowl in Manhattan -
fine particulate,
powdered grief,
speaking of thousands of
innocent dead,
drifting out
and up,
and blending theirs
with the dust and ash
of the millions of innocents
taken already.

Smoke from Buchenwald
and Dresden
and Hiroshima
and Guernica
and fiery pogroms.

Innocents -
numerous
and universal
and silent
as falling ash -
pray for us.

Dust from Russian gulags
Nanking streets
Southern cottonfields
West Bank bulldozings
coal mine explosions
diamond mine collapses
dry footfalls on the Trail of Tears.

Innocents -
so abundant
you shroud the sun -
pray for us.