Homeland
Crescent moon brighter than you, still.
The sky seems to bear witness. The sun coddles me just a bit more. The scars that stood tall like scarecrows on a freshly cut field have tanned just a degree more.
My shadow, the protectors, the civilized alike. All swiftly moved aside. I became a plague to avoid, I became a disease to destroy. Stood beside me a little crescent moon, the nights became easier still. Wherever I go next, indeed it was my homeland that cured my ills.
The poetry on the road, the chirping of the sparrow, it was the warmth in the morning that melted the ice within me. The night no longer a weapon to fear, it became a testament of prayer for me.
How the oppressor and I rose from this same land, it baffles me still. But, I assume it is because I have tasted the dirt of this land while he has tasted the defecation of swine. You would be surprised to see so much anger within me. But, it is a reality of what occurs when demons are desperate to rip off a swans wings.
Testament to my homeland, the soil which welcomed me back. The tears absorbed by the plants, the screams uncovered by the hot winds. Testament to my homeland, had I not been born here, to return, a place would not exist.
And, if it knew, my homeland it did, that such wretched beings claim to be of its soil, it would let the heavens befall them, it would open its ground to swallow them whole. Let not the moon see them tonight, spit curses their way, a witness to my fight. All lost, I won alone.
Due to the blood, due to soil in which I roamed. The mud which colored my hair, the hand-pumps baptized, the villages of the ancestors and the city all mine.
It is time to say goodbye to the homeland, here and there, I may go. But, when the pillow becomes warm, and the tears stain my face once more, to my homeland I will return, to once again not be alone.
