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Velene Campbell
When Everything We Do
Casts Shadows
This is a time when everything we do
casts shadows.
The diamonds we buy block out the light
of those who dig the stone,those who dig the stone
in anger slit throats
and throw burning tires
around the necks of villagers
as the light of flames
casts moving shadows
across the grass.A can for soup
is cut from the earth,
scars the landscape, returns
to the shadow of earth
in changed form.Giving birth to a baby
is no longer an act of light.The woman driving to pick up her kids
guns the gas residing in the darkness of an engine
that powers a war thousands of miles away.
The sun on her streets blocks the light
in Iraq.Shadows wait and grow in time.
In Iraq Saddam Hussein's son
went out at night, grabbed
young girls, rapedand tortured them as his henchmen
stood in the shadows his money cast;
money from shadow
grown for two decades
still covering
their landscape and ours.In this dance of light and darkness,
breath casts shadows
as smog
filters through the sunlight. Birds,
turning in the light
fly to alight on branches.Even food casts shadows.
In animal factories
pain is palpable,
immense;Small farmers,
broken by corporate interests,
watch as genes are inserted
into the shadow of seed.This is a time of diminishing light
where a people, in silence,
watch as their shadows gather like water,form like clouds,
block out the sun.
Copyright (c) Velene Campbell 2004. All rights reserved.
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