How to Write a Poem in a Time of War

You can’t begin just anywhere. It’s a wreck. Shrapnel and the eye Of a house, a row of houses. There’s a rat scrambling From light with fleshy trash in its mouth. A baby strapped to its mother’s back Cut loose. Soldiers crawl the city, The river, the town, the village, The bedroom, our kitchen. They eat everything. Or burn it. They kill what they cannot take. They rape. What they cannot kill they take. Rumors fall like rain. Like bombs. Like mother and father tears swallowed for restless peace. Like sunset slanting toward a moonless midnight. Like a train blown free of its destination.         Like a seed fallen where There is no chance of trees                 or anyplace       for birds to live. No, start here.                           Deer peer from the edge of the woods. We used to see woodpeckers The size of the sun, redbirds, and were greeted By chickadees with their good morning songs. We’d started to cook outside slippery with dew and laughter, ah those smoky sweet sunrises. We tried to pretend war wasn’t going to happen. Though they began building their houses all around us and demanding 
more. They started teaching our children their god’s story, A story in which we’d always be slaves. No. Not here. You can’t begin here. This is memory shredded because it is impossible to hold by words, even poetry.