The Struggle Odes

By Mackie Blanton

36                               I have often wondered why

                                   it is neighbors are not also

                       friends.  Across our garden and yard I

                       sense that my neighbor loves his wife but

             believes in discipline, rule, and denial, as he tucks

his army blanket across the boozy stupor of her chest, and leaves her

to the gathering evening chill prattling across the patio.

37                               Normally, Rwanda's rivers swell

                                   with red clay when the rains

                         come. This year the shallows also swell with

                         desecrated black bodies bleached purple white

               by the rich eroding red earth: first, old men  soldiers

boys girls  women, then the live babies, drowning downstream  Upon Africa's

escaping faces reign mute hunger and holloweyed confusion.

38                               When the struggles

                                    are ancient, there

                        is no distinction between soldier

                        and civilian in the human hunt.

                        Fighting only to stay alive means fighting

only to escape from the repetitive future. Heads of state have never been

outraged enough to say that we are sisters and brothers.