Each afternoon the world goes by above it
on the train. Maybe I look down with envy
on the thin strip, the only flat spot
in this jagged land. The strip was cleared
of stone so long ago the stony hill that falls
long and steep toward it from the train, the gulch
that falls off on the other side, seem younger
than the farm. They plant their dead between
the house and where the brown men plow.
All so certain. Where you’re born, you die.
That first of many terrifying days, a child
can stare his plot into a whale, or stare until
he knows exactly how his grave dug out
will look, a rich cut into soil
nothing grows in now. He must know he’ll endure
the quakes, the shifting snow, the rain
that flashes down the boulders every spring
to sweep the farmland clean, to ready land
for planting. He must know other children
will respect his name because Cyrillic
settles like the weather into stone.
From tyranny the road out goes to states
more frightening than rage. If you run away
you cut your feet, your first scream comes back
doubled in the city, and one day old walls
seem like arms. I’ll stay on the train
to Sarajevo, remembering a graveyard
in the country, a hot day and a woman
with a blue bouquet asking me directions
to a stone someone way back forgot to mark.