by Carol Alena Aronoff
when hands steepled in prayer
open
bloodstained palms
in a last gesture
to smoke-filled sky?
When ashes
cover newly dug graves
unfindable
by those who wish
a final goodbye
before they flee?
Who will gather
broken dolls
to hold a funeral
for childhood?
Cover the ears
of shell-shocked
dogs
as their owners
carry them?
Collect tears
from empty bullet-
scarred wells?
Grow sunflowers
from torn limbs
and copper jackets?
Who will be left
to push grandmothers
in wheelbarrows
nowhere safe?
Who?
Carol Alena Aronoff, Ph.D. is a psychologist, teacher and poet. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and won several prizes. She was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Carol has published 4 chapbooks (Cornsilk, Tapestry of Secrets, Going Nowhere in the Time of Corona, A Time to Listen) and 6 full-length poetry collections: The Nature of Music, Cornsilk, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep, Blessings From an Unseen World, Dreaming Earth’s Body (with artist Betsie Miller-Kusz) as well as The Gift of Not Finding: Poems for Meditation. Currently, she resides in rural Hawaii.