Longing for Home

For Ali

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I don't know what it's like
to be landless because of
war,
to crawl on the ground in starvation,
bypassing the fallen figs
and drawing circles in the dust,
hoping for beetles.

I don't know what it's like
to have my brother turn in to
a little bird, following the buzzards
in their flight to sustenance in the
dead eyes awaiting in other places.

I don't know the ache of walking
in blood mud or the exhaustion of crying
for the old and the never young. I only
know terrible paradise, and the Hell of
not belonging there.