The Ashes on our Forehead
The ashes on our forehead might be last year’s burned palms. Or wildfires - burned Lytton, LA, Athens. Or war-blacked cities, Mariupol, London, Dresden, Hiroshima, smouldering remains of commerce, purpose, neighbours, love. The ashes on our forehead, horror, memory – the kilns of Auschwitz, Phnom Penh’s killing fields, napalm, charred bones of village, burning child. Caught in the sin of the world, in its leg-hold trap, gnawing our leg, self-consuming, burning our home: making ashes even of ourselves.