Searching for light on a winter gray day

I drive south to where there is open land

 

and park my car by an old stone wall

that draws a line round the grand manor house.

 

The owners who reigned here died away

though the legacy they left remains today.

 

Now down in the flats, by the old quarters 

ten mourning doves assemble in a line

 

and I see by the river     a wall of armed men

pushing back people      bleeding brown tears

when from the mud        rise a thousand lost lives

while a thousand more   close their eyes.

 

Then I hear like an echo, as if from the past

the choir of doves begin their lament.