Mud on my boots
Hands that forgot what they grew
House with its windows boarded
Still waiting for someone it knew
Smoke stains on the wallpaper
Table set for a vanished day
Mother’s voice in the hallway
Fading each time I turn away
Rain on the abandoned fields
Washing names from the stone
Every drop a dying word
For the ones never coming home
We were just the common people
Quiet faces in the crowd
Now our story breaks like thunder
And falls
But never
Never out loud
Rust on the swings in the schoolyard
No one to argue
To fall
Flags that once covered our shoulders
Stuffed in a drawer down the hall
He left with a kiss on my forehead
Said he’d be back by the thaw
Now winter circles forever
Gnawing a hole in the law
Rain on the abandoned fields
Washing names from the stone
Every drop a dying word
For the ones never coming home
We were just the common people
Quiet faces in the crowd
Now our story breaks like thunder
And falls
But never
Never out loud
I dream of the road to my homeland
But the border keeps moving away
Maps crumble under my fingers
As the colors all seep into gray
If sorrow could carry a suitcase
If longing could open a gate
We’d walk back through smoke to our village
And trade in this grief
For its weight
Rain on the abandoned fields
Washing names from the stone
Every drop a dying word
For the ones never coming home
We were just the common people
Silent ghosts in the crowd
Our lost homeland lives in whispers
And rains
Forever
Never out loud