Darfur.

Darfur

   The earth is eating all the little birds.
   It feasts, grows fat. Their eyes are stones, black jewels

   we rattle in our pockets. Mouths are blurred
   with sheen of flies, and all the pretty fools

   are silent here, no careless songs, no tra-la-la.
   The guns alone have voices now

   that parse the shattered bones, an algebra
   of rotting flesh where jackals slink and crouch.

   As if in prayer, the camels kneel on sand
   with groans and mutters shielded not by leaves

   but by the thorns so like the strands from trees
   that can be woven into crowns. The land

   is pale with moonlight. Even stars repel
   this earth and pull away. The round void swells.

Louise Murphy is a poet, novelist, and flautist living in Berkeley, California.