The birds float up from giant trees with
the first staccato shots. Bullets flare
through orange flames, cleanly slicing
leaves to bury themselves in pale trunks,
brown dirt or red flesh. Mortar bombs
arc past clouds to blast the earth with
clawing barbarity. Again and again
the noise gathers itself into hard crests.
Then falls away into valleys of snapping
Flames and cries of pain as the battle ebbs.
Eyes of stone knives cannot pierce
The acrid fog drifting low from burning tents.
Somewhere, a child cries plaintively,
Its thin voice singing past the moans of
the wounded. Only the still forms scattered
along the fringes of the camp are quiet.
Still lips kissing the cool dirt.
The attack ends as quickly as it began
with only the thrashing leaves in the
forest marking the enemy's withdrawal.
He stands alone beside the languid river.
A tall man. Fraying uniform. Haunted eyes.
His formal rank meaningless, he is known
Simply as "Commander" by his soldiers.
The echoing ring of the battle is still loud
in his ears as his men prepare to move out.
Collecting gear, scavenging the dead.
He watches the rippling waters of the river
as they split, wrap around a boulder, then heal
themselves, leaving a small wake as a scar
stretching downstream until it is lost among
the scars from other rocks that breach
the surface or hide just out of sight.
The dimming sun is reflected in the undulating
shimmers that keep him there transfixed until
a dark shape passes to break the spell. A body.
Caught in the current. Face up. Wearing the
Uniform of an enemy soldier. The Commander
Notes mildly the face is that of a boy's with lost
Years forever separating him from the first shave
That would have welcomed him into manhood.
Wide eyes that should still be discovering the world
stare unseeing at the stars beginning to appear in the
darkening sky. Past the Commander the body slides
effortlessly downstream, bouncing ever so gently off
each rock it comes into contact with. How long,
he wonders, before this river merges with another,
perhaps one or two more before reaching the sea.
Will those eyes still be watching those cold stars
when they reach the endless waves of the ocean?
Will the clouds hang back so that the night sky
above will find its brother below in the water
giving this boy a bed of diamonds to rest on
while telling his sad tale over and again until
he disappears beyond distant horizons?
Yes, we hated them, the Commander thought.
Their arrogance was so vast, their minds could
Not embrace our humanity. We could not forget
The land they stole from us, the herds of cattle
Trampling our hard-won farms, and, worst of all,
The accusing eyes of our cousins in '72, hands
Bound, crocodile food floating in the Great Lake.
Ancient humiliations must be repaid, the radio
Voices and politicians screeched. They laid the
shame of squandered generations heavy on our
backs and in our children's eyes. They poked at us
until our anger seethed behind daily smiles as we
waited to collect for shed tears and cold waiting.
Common military victories would not be enough
to erase that stain. So ferocious were we for wronged
yesterdays, so mandatory was the justice of the act
that we could not be satisfied until we had taken
away all their tomorrows. Only in the glorious moment
when they were damned to the same purgatoried
history as our cheated forefathers and ours were
the only hands raised to the heavens above
Would forgiveness be possible.
But it was not to be...
Our future died in the same bloody dirt
as their women and children. We slaughtered
them in numbers that would have left the
night sky dark for want of stars to light our way
or beaches bereft of sand to hold back the surf.
Yet, still, we failed. We did not know nor
expect that their bloodied spirits would
add battalions to the strength of
their living fighters pouring across the land.
The arms that wielded machetes day and
night became too weak to pull triggers
so we were overrun in the middle of our
red madness. Broken, we had only one
choice. We ran and kept running until
our legs could no longer carry us. We
thought we were beyond the reach of
their ravenous vengeance in another
country but we didn't count on how their
anger would give them wings so that now
it is we, who dreamed such dark dreams
of a new era christened in blood,
that stand on the precipice.
The Commander's first sensation upon awakening
was a bug crawling across his face. Swiping it off,
he opens his eyes to stare up at the graying sky just
visible through the spears and shields of the leaves
above him. All around unseen people were stirring,
quiet voices a building murmur to the new day.
Standing, he sees very little of the humanity stretching
through the undergrowth he knows is spread across
the forest floor. Already their presence presses upon
him much as the growing humidity of the day. Of his own
soldiers he can only see a few immediately nearby.
Most are probably scattered among the civilians
where everyone dropped from exhaustion last night.
His own limbs complain with dull pulsing aches
from the punishment he gave them yesterday. Before
the war, most officers his age found comfort behind
desks leaving sweat and clutching mud behind with
their youth. Their greatest exercise was the walk to
Officers Club for evening drinks or to a local cabaret.
That life was now buried along with many of those
officers. He stretched, feeling the years dragging
his bones, an insistent lover that would not be
denied her kiss. How easy, he thought, to simply
go back to sleep, to become a clock with its
winding mechanism slowly, quietly running down.
Yet still he lived. He wondered at his gift of survival
while others, so many others, were snatched by Death.
No family, friends, or even his classmates from
l'École Militaire walks this path with him now,
each loss cutting one more connection to this world
until he feels adrift. His mind threatening to spin
out of control with nothing to hold him back, to anchor him.
Above, a lone bird whistles a tuneless melody calling,
calling with no answer returning through the leaves.
The smell of cooking food wafts past and he realizes
he is also very hungry. When had he last eaten? A day?
Two? An orderly arrives with a tin of coffee which helps
him to become more alert. He stares out over the
underbrush where a fog begins to form from the smoke
as hundreds of cooking fires are lit. Pans clatter as
food is prepared and people move about gathering
firewood. Some head downhill towards the nearest
stream.
He glances up through the trees at the smoke
wafts among the branches of the forest canopy to catch
the first bright rays stroking the treetops. He begins
making mental notes of the scene. He silently considers
options as his fingers tap against his leg. Time to get
moving. He calls some of the nearest soldiers to him
and give them orders. Some head off to other parts
of the camp. The Commander fills his canteen from
the water jug and then grabs some spare ammunition
clips. After a quick meal, he collects one of his sergeants,
checks the time, and marches into the brush.
The border. Men trudge past, churning mud.
Boots grown to grotesque shapes by
Clinging earth pulling at them as they wind
Past abandoned vehicles, fuel exhausted or
engines broken by the strain of retreat.
Still hooked to some are artillery pieces,
The army's great symbols of iron virility left
Flaccid under their covers, left impotent when
ammo dumps were abandoned, barrels pointing
Shamefully towards the earth, drained of power
When most needed under an apricot sunrise.
Past the border guards, many drop rifles
Or, if militia, machetes and clubs.
Officers shout to maintain order but
Exhaustion commands now along with
Relief that the race is over. These are
Not the proud soldiers that strutted
Arrogantly on distant parade grounds
Most of those men are gone.
Dead or lost along hundreds of
Kilometers of road, or battlefields
that were never named. Even when
the faces were the same, the starched
uniforms of ceremonies were now worn
into shreds, scraps, ghosts of uniforms
mixed with whatever else they could find
along the many paths to this ending.
Some faces were entirely new. Old men
And those too young to have ever scraped
A razor across naked skin still yearning for
Schoolyard play. Now they own their
killers' faces adding years to their walk.
Some have already taken wives from the
Crowds of refugees who were themselves no
More than girls grown hard with eyes
that spoke of things that most adults
never saw or would want to see. The young
now fought their parents' battles. The living
took up the baton to fight for the dead.
For them, words like "peace" or "rich,"
Would always be from a foreign language.
Claudine woke suddenly as the Commander
strode by. His boots nearly brushed her head
where she and her friend Esther lay curled
under a bush where they had crawled
when the soldiers finally called a halt.
If her feet didn't ache she would have
thought it just a terrible dream. How long
did they walk she couldn't say. Maybe just
hours but it felt like weeks since starting
out the previous day and then all night
in near total darkness. One hand on
the person in front of you, staying quiet
even as gunfire beats the air around you.
Now daylight returned to push the nightmare
back, breathing the colors back into the world.
Even Esther's face returned to life as the growing
light shifted the color in her face from a
gray pallor to its normal chocolate tone.
Claudine gave a small prayer of thanks that
they made it this far while unpacking her bundle.
As in the camp, she took up the hard work
of living. Every act of preparing food,
binding blistered feet, using a little of their
precious water to wash off some of the grime,
is a personal incantation to the new day
part of the perpetual hunt by all refugees
for a fragile balance when Hope is a hungry
animal existing only on crumbs
Esther sat up, stretched, and flashed a
brilliant smile at Claudine. The two women
had first met in the camp, amputated from
families, needing to make new ties
creating a new whole stitched over old stumps.
Exorcising their demons, singing back
The silence, the deafness to keep from
Drifting back into stylized incomprehension.
Throwing themselves into their work,
running a makeshift clinic with sporadic
help from aid groups and doctors drifting
through to appease the endemic guilt of the
haves with a brief stint of band aid care.
The two women became inseparable, leaning
on each other through the epidemics and
food shortages, later to make good their
harrowing escape after the camp came
under attack. Encouraging each other
to keep up with the column as it hurried
through the dark. Trying not to panic knowing
those unseen hunters were sometimes close.
Very close. Imagined hands reaching
for them. Clutching. Straining fingers
almost brushing their hair...
They left the camp, shrouded in the smoke
Of burning tents and grass huts. The fight
Was over but more attacks were certain.
Evacuation the only option. The soldiers
Set fire to everything they could hoping
The smoke would hide them long enough
To get a head start.
Following a path that kept the smoke between
Them and the hills where the enemy troops
Watched with seething hunger, she tried
Not to look at the rows of still forms bundled
Under straw mats or multi-colored cloth
That flapped in the breeze. A final farewell
Wave to the living? Or were they beckoning us
To stay and join them?
Andreas Morgner's book, When You Come Again, You Will Never Go, was the winner of the Unlikely Books WRITE REAL GOOD Poetry Chapbook Contest. He is 52.
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