What is lost lies scattered like debris
in a desolate wasteland:

faded blue school dress, pockets
ink-stained, proud hem unravelled;
a teacher’s worn briefcase gaping open,
spilling pens and promise on the ground;

sweat-stained hoe, splintered door,
fire-blackened pot, charred blanket,
ploughshares draped in spiders’ webs,
random fragments of glass, iron, clay, thatch;

flapping in the wind, yellowed news-sheet
shamed by its own print; beneath it
pressed into mud, a mosaic of dried blood
and bone in silent invocation;

and caught in the rusted barbs of a fence
folded in on itself, a flame tree’s waxy
orange blossom still full with the memory
of its own magnificence.