The killings continue, each second
pain and misfortune extend themselves
in the genetic chain, injustice is done knowingly,
and the air bears the dust of decayed hopes,
yet breathing those fumes, walking the thronged
pavements among crippled lives, jackhammers
raging, a parking lot painfully agleam in the May sun,
I have seen not behind but within,
within the dull grief, blown grit,
hideous concrete façades, another grief,
a gleam as of dew, an abode of mercy,
have heard not behind but within noise
a humming that drifted into a quiet smile.
Nothing was changed, all was revealed otherwise;
not that horror was not, not that the killings did not continue;
not that I thought there was to be no more despair,
but that as if transparent all disclosed
an otherness that was blesséd, that was bliss,
I saw Paradise in the dust of the street.