A poem a week for 2012 - a record of a year in the life of...

...Belgium - the weight of sorrow

strangers' faces crowding the screens

touching the world watching blindly

the edges of deepening despair eating

spreading

inconsolable 

seeping through

the night air upwards outwards reaching 

entire communities swamped by silent 

emptiness eerily all-pervading stifling

meaninglessness hangs moribund drooping

devastation

draining speech stomachs churning

denial confusion white fear incomprehension

we watch holding the edges of the void looking

into the abyss unable to do any thing listening

to bulletins of foreign names places people

hearing the grass grow with deafening noise

each blade 

piercing 

hearts tearing at airways 

strangled sobs screams helpless incapacitated

mothers' day dawns mocking heavy irony single

shafts of sunlight catch me waking blackbird chirps

breaking the tension waving over me as I reach

out and touch your fingertips feeling your warmth

quickly

close my eyes pray for other mothers 

the weight of my guilt for their loss searching 

skyward hoping wanting reaching out

for the benevolence of a small god

what little gods does a bystander's blessing

this black day?

 Eight survivors return home - BBC News - 15 March 2012