Place of worship

A man climbs up

the stone wall of the temple;

his people laugh

without a thought.

Sacrilege brands

a loathing so ample,

its abundance resuscitates

the desperate and distraught.

The elderly bow

and inch through the tori-i

– a hand, home in another hand.

All this time, it was in

these hands: the Plough

above the burning

of our homelands.