The God of All the Small Things

Little girl
Why can you not eat the bread of your nation?
Little girl
Your arms grow out like the barren boughs against the white moon of your face
It's true you must die before you were born, before you had risen
Keep the dust, the handfuls of gravel, the burnt wood-
your memories

Little girl
Your eyes are too old for your face
and they hang like rotten figs on a black limb
In the field, ah, in the field
lives the God of all the small things-
The light of the things you will never know

In the field is your freedom, green and plenty
But little girl, you are here with the world unknowing
You are here with guns, the sword, the blood
with the tears from a well that has long ago dried
Little girl, we have voted for the bombs

In my fullness I have killed your mother
And in my silence, I have killed your father too
And now someone strange holds you- someone nameless to you
Just as you are nameless to me
And little girl,
Now, as you lay there dying, know that you are a piece of light

Know that you live in love if you cannot live in life
Go to your field
That calls you like the song of your mother
With the golden rye of memory
The sweet winds of remembrance
Go now to your field
The one your father tilled with his hands
The one from which your mother harvested the grains for your bread
Go to it and lay, little girl
And rest in the green and the plenty forever