Me and Thee

There's an ocean between us
(I'd prefer it a puddle)
It's my ego and I
Got us into this muddle.

There's a land mass between us
(I'd prefer it a garden)
For your heart's with another
And I've forced mine to harden.

There's a galaxy gap
(But I crave inner space)
And the moon's a reflection
Of your lovely face.

Tidalia

'The land may vary more
But wherever truth may be -
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.'
- Robert Frost

(What is it of that fluid edge
That keeps us all in thrall ?
That justifies the seeker's pledge
But makes us feel so small ?)

I reach for her, and she for me -
My endless mirror: the sea, the sea.
On far horizon's line she keeps
The mysteries of her tawny deeps.
But here on my loved rocky shore,
With noisy breakers by the score,
I manage what lies in my reach,
And search for treasures on the beach.

The Horn, Silenced

The dust from the shuffling of a million feet,
Obscuring the sun in its appalling heat.
The mothers and children, the men without herds,
Moving forward towards nothing - looking back without words.

The borders are blurred when the drought is complete,
And the crops turn to dust under shuffling feet.
There's a way to the camp, with the promise of water,
So a couple move on with the corpse of their daughter.

Kwashiorkur relentless, and the young will die first -
Armageddon triumphant (malnutrition and thirst.)
Still the warlords deny all the death in their land,
Though the harvest's a bounty of dust, dirt and sand.

At the gate stand two thugs, and they greet with a shove;
Still the couple persist with their bundle of love.
Join the mob at the truck, where the water's in flight,
Then the search for a roof, and some ground for the night.

I have seen quite enough, so I switch off the news,
And I head for the fridge for a couple of brews.
While a husband and wife face a hole in the ground,
And the mummified death of a love that they'd found.

Then I reach for a pen, pop a cheque in the post,
For an easing of guilt, then I'm done - well, almost.
I should do it again in a week, month or year;
For the need will continue beyond this, I fear.

And the pair walk away to an uncertain fate,
Just two pawns on the board of Somalian hate.
Now a wind swirls the dust on that long-barren plain,
Where a cross on a grave marks unbearable pain.