72 Poem by RIC BASTASA

for how did each of them here care for you?
they only think of themselves and their
children and their mothers and
fathers
their land, their memories, their vacations,
themselves and their reflections
in their mirrors

how selfish have they become
unlike what their roots have done to their soils

now what they must take are nothing but numbers
there are no scents there are no colors

but numbness and they all deserve that
their indifference must go back to their houses
and their kitchens shall have neither salt nor sugar
neither flame nor ice

now they must thrive on their own hatred and
being lost they shall not find their way back home