Unless it Falls

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

-Jesus

Today

Hope wears black

and carries a casket

of thorns.

I did not wish it to be this way.

How things change

so soon.

How Winter swallows up

Autumn

on the last night

of Summer.

I hold a plane ticket

in my hands.

Eighteen million are homeless

at my former destination.

Now 18,000 of my

cousin’s days are dead.

It all happened overnight.

I can still hear

my uncle’s voice

on the phone those

ten years ago.

I was just a kid

trying to find my way

in this world,

just a man

trying to make sense

of silence.

I see him standing

in the corner

of next week.

He too wears black,

like Hope.

--082910--