17 February 2008

PRISMATIC PEACE

In the middle of dark afternoon

while napping on my sofa

I am startled awake

by vivid prismatic colors

on the wall in front of me

cast there by two prisms


Removed from German officer’s binoculars

who might have surveilled

Allied positions calling in the shots

brought back by my father

at the end of World War II

taken apart by my six-year-old hands


To carry with me through five decades

placed on my window sills

so I can see the prism colors

caressing the wall

awakening me on dark afternoons

when the sun returns


A machinic tool of war

scanning the light of battlefields

calling in death and blood-red color

through time transforms an object

filling my eyes with rainbow hues

of prismatic peace.

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