Flower Gardeners Of War

My parents are gardeners

from the land you know

as war and rice paddies

A place where incendiary precipitation

pattered against infertile soils and

limbs of lovers scattered the streets

Where souls and cities were slaughtered

by disputing doctrines and

palm trees swayed to the songs of

unceasing flocks of choppers

There, fumes of endless exhaust laced

the atmosphere as

arable terrain was set ablaze

Shovels swapped for snipers.

Seeds swapped for bullets.

How could one expect any type

of floriculture to flourish in such

environment?

So when the sea beckoned their names,

promising obscure fates,

they could not abdicate.

The ocean– its own kingdom–

is no more serene than the one from which they came

It is a nation of no good;

wrathful currents swallowed some whole,