Hymn to the Sun

I have just added this poem, by William Michaelian, to his collection at Soul Food.

After the war,
fathers are silent in their vineyard rows,
and mothers are bound by grief.

After the war,
sisters tend the rolling hills
where brothers forever sleep.

And the young brides who wait
go mad suckling their unborn children.

After the war,
the earth sings a hymn to the sun,
but nothing grows, hidden from the light.

What will we say, after the war?
What strange stories will we tell?
When the children ask us why we killed,
will we send them on to hell?

The earth sings a hymn to the sun.
Like fallen angels, we walk among the graves.
Here lies the artist, the builder, the dreamer,
she would be a doctor, he a teacher,
yet none of them were saved.

After the war, will we hear the earth?
When the blood has turned to crusty loam,
will we look up in wonder at the sun?

After the war,
will we sing a hymn to living,
or will we choose to sleep?

Some say we are descendants of those who lived on Mars.
Some say benevolent beings from other worlds are here to guide us.
Some say God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.
Some say He is old and tired, and has been resting ever since.

I say Yes. They are all part of the same golden hymn.
To deny is an imagined privilege, religiously abused,
an inherited excuse to remain pathetic and small.
Yes is an open door. No is a death knell in the dark.