POW Memorial, Sandakan, Borneo.

There is a dark grove of trees on the hill

of Sandakan,

where the prisoners finished their lives,

or began to finish them

in unspeakable ways,

no gentle deaths allowed.

The powerful ones showed

such ingenuity in torture.

How to slowly crucify.

How to punish the body

with heat and starvation

before merciless death.

The men were brave,

the survivors said,

when ulcers ate their legs,

perhaps a whimper or two.

The jungle took their bodies.

Felt hats decaying in the undergrowth.

Then the death marches,

to finish them off in Ranau

under the shadow of Mount Kinabalu.

The barely-alive still hoping, somehow,

before the final shots from

men obeying orders.

This story has many variations

on war’s hills and valleys.

What are the questions

for captive and captor?

Both answers hide within us, waiting

for history’s awakening.

The Pilgrim Road to Santiago

(For Nerma)   

I met a young girl

on the road to

Santiago de Compostela

when the journey was nearly done.

Her load she bore lightly

as she shortened her pace for mine.

I am not a man,

but when the day comes,

for counting the memories

I will recall her beauty.

What gift could be given

along the way, taking each step

closer to Santiago’s gleaming city?

The spires there heavy with ancient meaning,

stone angels in perpetual

supplication and holy desire.

What could I say of life?

There were things I could have said,

but was I able to tell her

what I could not tell myself?

Walking as the dawn broke behind us

I thought to open her eyes

to the magpie’s call

in the dark cathedral of the morning.

Will you be sorry at the end

for the goal we wish for?

But it is not the end, she said.

She showed me the stones

that she carried, each one

fitting the palm of her hands.

What could I tell her?

The vines touched with gold

with September’s chill,

dogs howling at our passing.

And when she was gone

with her swift tread

my heart ached

with the sweetness of life.

Maybe what I sought

had travelled with us.

The gift had been given.