This Thursday (Lampedusa)

This Thursday has had many voices:
starlings scattered from the poplar trees,
a kid that swung her disappointments like a hammer,
      the library rustle of dry reeds in the breeze.

I listened to two German day trippers trying to decipher the menu
but then you, far away, off the coast of Lampedusa,
you echoed over my carrot cake and coffee,
      from the breaking news.

I may not understand the starlings´ chatter
but no “not understanding”
has a hold on death.

To you who are stitched to a time and place now
you had no hand in choosing
and lie stripped bare of your name
      and of your joy and sadness,

wrapped in plastic on a concrete quay
in yet another place
that never wanted you,
      to you,

who are just as much to praise and blame
for what you did and said and wanted
as any one of the rest of us
      on this sun-whipped rock,

I stretch my hands out to you,
in hopeless imitatio of God
whose love and sadness must be so great

they extend beyond all evidence and reason
into the silent eye
of every moment of the world,

      and blindly grasp for anything that holds
      like anybody drowning.