Noise

Travelers to Auschwitz and the Killing Fields,

Kigali, Lorraine Motel,

411 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas,

speak of a profound silence.

A tragedy has happened here:

everyone knows it;

all can respect it;

even the earth, no stranger to blood,

is cowed by the amount that seeps in.

I stand

in the land

where, for 42 years,

you massacred Seminole people.

There's a Wal-Mart here now.

I watch the sea

where my forefathers chose to die once,

just once,

rather than a thousand times

in chains.

I bury my feet in the hot shore

where you herded those who didn't get the chance

and I hear:

the Top 40 station

a boardwalk DJ

a stranger's phone conversation

cars

a dune buggy

the horn of a Carnival cruise

the whirring of a banner-bearing plane

Spring Break, and all that implies

Is this why you are cursed?

The amount of lifeblood spilled here,

you ought to impose

an eternity of silence.

You are full of noise where there should be none.

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