Written after looking at a newspaper photograph of a distraught Albanian Kosovan man standing by the body of his dead son, and the experience of losing one of my own sons:

Bereft

Draw near.

Observe how his dignity impresses,

those everlasting clothes, shapeless, worn.

Peasant of ages, standing still,

craggy, stoic, grim,

unblinking, impassive.

 

Is this the way to mourn?

Is he really coping with the shock?

He seems hard, impervious, like a rock.

But may something be bruised and bleed within?

There are questions I would like to ask.

Does it still beat - his constricted heart?

Does brain still think? Do eyes still see?

Within his veins does blood still run?

He’s quietly lost behind his mask,

and mercifully numb.

 

David Roberts    13 - 15 November 1999

Copyright © 1999 David Roberts

Kosovo War Poetry Index Page