Letter From Kathmandu

Friends, let us wake with disbelief
bare our souls, tell our stories, lose our eyes,
become vagrants of the Sea.

Let us seek the heat
of the kernel that feeds in the dark
and step aside of men whose twisted lips
pretend to lead, but are not real
in their pursuit of war.

We've already seen years
of massacre, hydrogen light the night,
children with ruined eyes, tortured by what 
no one should ever see.

Let us leave our security,
open our memory, bring flowers
from the storm, write letters that become 
sanctuaries, so that we ourselves 
may become sanctuaries.

Friends, a dream
runs up to me smiling. I call on you
to see in the dark, to finish
the song inside you. .  

From In What Disappears by John Brandi. Copyright © 2003 by John Brandi. Reprinted by permission of White Pine Press. All rights reserved.