Tenderly he lifted her like a merchant with fine china,

he laid her on the grass and called her name,  no

answer, he heard as she listened only to the dear

departed and already had forgotten his tenderness.

—-

Slowly she sank into the grass as if she was longing

for her grave. He walked to the children and brought

them to see her. They saw the shell of the woman 

who had cared, cosseted, cleaned and catered for

—

them. Tears fell like petals of pale almond blossom,

and in the heat dried to nothing as did their hearts.

They helped their fretting father find and cover her 

with stones taken from earth until their own hands

——

blooded with her loss and the rasp and cut of the

boulders they had pushed and shoved until they

hid the heart and hands that had loved them all.

Then with an emptiness beyond words they went,

——–

travelling towards their hope of safety and a kind

word, not a gunboat or a rifle shot, not even that

prison where they are treated like criminals whose

crime was to be alive in a place of intolerance, of

——

intentional harm, of indiscriminate violence and

now they are looking East at somewhere to ease

their weariness and fears, a place of tolerance and

yet the only is spent to bar them, stop them and

—-

bury them at sea rather than have tolerance,

compassion, and create a safe place where they

might heal and learn again that there is a place

where refugees are seen as those to help;

not

to

violate.