Potent grief exists in the paternoster
recited by exiles each break of dawn —
and they never cease to mourn with drums.

Exiles are men
with two lives,
and they often fast,
preferring to sip gently the treacly sap
dripping from the eyes of fortitude.

Riding the thin line
of the horizon,
they seek truths underneath
receding rims of the atmosphere —

the truths
of a desolated homeland
atrophied by distance.

They do not pray
only to return home,
but to meet their mothers’ funerals —

Mothers harassed to death
by ruthless authorities
whose diaries speak of languor.

How do pirates with their eye patches
count the stars,
and how do feathers of thinning clouds
react to the invasion of rioting storms?

Exiles are native drummers
gone for a festivity yonder.
Like the dead, they live in the
hearts of those who truly love them.