News from Home.

"Teenager guilty in torture and dismemberment case"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,1099423,00.html
I close the bleak dispatches of despair,
and place the folded  paper on the chair.

White walls strutted with shadows,
stairways climb and cut back
to baffle the perspectives.
In the pool, the plunge of brown skin,

shot with gold, spouts syllables of water,
out-dazzles the day.
Sun burns along the river's tent
melts to deep glooms in the sea's heart.

The afternoon holds like a pent breath.
Light pins each of us, vulnerable in our frailty,
alone upon the earth. We look to gather
these quiet times of civilized exchange;

the polished cutlery's gleam, lovers under palms,
the glass of wine bleeds glowing cusps,
'Vien, Malika', quietly on a plucked guitar,
silhouettes of vine leaves on the floor.

Shadows, beyond this enclave, crowd closer,
winds from the sea press in,
flap the corner of the tablecloth,
bulge the canopy, shake the dusty leaves.

There are some who despise love,
we read of them and their profanities.
We can only aggregate these moments
redress the balance of our shared humanities.