When is we
Helen Dixon
English
When will that we become all people?
when some already know/ we’re the seed of a drop/ on a ledge of stone/ cliff-hanging/
on the face of a mountain/ above unending waters/
we tremble frail with the wind/ this body gathers/ before the fall.
When/ is memory/ as the hurricane hits/overfeeds our starving river/ carries cattle trucks like ping pong balls/ carves houses in two/ leaves knife-edge walls and lives/ sweeps away whole neighbourhoods/ with suicidal boys who’ve lost everything/ on hills that weep with mudslides/when is now we knew.
When/ year after year/those storms came longer, hotter, furious/ that the sumptuous north barely noticed/ and we gathered to heal the aftermath/ make different worlds among us/ from the otherness of ungrieved bodies/ when is here.
Now floods and fires are at your door/you still ignore us/
When will your we stop/ and listen to us all?