RECONCILIATION

Between nations
reconciliation
is easier:
old treacheries persist
dull as toothaches
or they are dispensed
a teaspoon at a time.

A border is shifted
severing a mountain
or spilling out
the contents of a lake.

A refugee
without taking a step
is transformed
to a full citizen,
a partisan
to chancellor.

Waterways are opened
letting the small ships
sail out again,
their flags
high on the mast.

Between men and women
reconciliation
is difficult, trust
uncomfortable
as a pair of new shoes.

Objects
which one inhabited
the same space
are wedged apart -- jagged lines
in place for life.
Broadsheet
where there once
was book.
Who could put
these pages
together again.

Among the nations
it is decreed
that the names
of the streets
shall be changed,
the towns occupied
by new mayors,
headstones erased
in the cemetery.

The leaf
shall be driven back
to its tree;
the dismembered arm
to its socket.
The memory
of the nations
does not know
the way to us.

by Myra Sklarew

More works by this artist