Disowning the Dead

The harvest had a number The number had a plan The village gave its winter To the hunger of the man The body had a quota The quota had a name The shovel learned correction And the camp forgot the grave They called it bad weather They called it delay They called it the birth-pain Of a better day Never the theory Only shortage, only men Only sabotage and history Misbehaving once again The posters kept the promise The offices kept the keys The bread became permission And permission learned to bleed Don’t tell us it was not the dream When the bodies mark the road If every road from heaven Ends in graves The dream must own the bones The border had a promise The promise had a wire The children learned the minefield Was the map of their desire The question had an office The office had a list The answer learned confession Before the mouth existed They called it deviation They called it foreign hands They called the dead a failure Of insufficient plans Never the doctrine Only pressure, only war Only enemies within it Only not enough, not more The posters kept the promise The offices kept the keys The bread became permission And permission learned to bleed Don’t tell us it was not the dream When the bodies mark the road If every road from heaven Ends in graves The dream must own the bones Every famine was weather Every camp was a mistake Every border was temporary Every corpse was not the faith Every purge was pressure Every grave was misapplied Every death was somewhere else And the dream was still alive The posters kept the promise The offices kept the keys The bread became permission And permission learned to bleed Don’t tell us it was not the dream When the bodies mark the road If every road from heaven Ends in graves The dream must own the bones And still the promise rises With the old names left unsaid Still the dream walks forward Stepping lightly on the dead No one broke the promise They filed it. They starved it They buried it Then they sold it again