Contemporaneity

In another land as I write

there’s an explosion and a scream

there’s a quite sob and grief-weary eyes

that just cannot in tear find release

there’s horror that cannot congeal into scream

funerals and burials;

right now, as I write 

it’s early evening in certain cities

and late night in others

there’s love-making and festivity

babies are being born 

death by natural causes recorded;

right now, as I write

there’s life and death

encased in the eternal verities 

the ata lo dahama 

acknowledged or not;

right now, as I write

there’s a heartbeat 

in primordial irregularity 

saying ‘write, write

for death must come

and you don’t know when’;

right now, as I write

there’s a ticking in my heart

a time-bomb it is

that the world calls ‘love’.