Day of Remembrance

There is a people Who builds a life Around sirens.

Can you believe it?

The music is a monotone That contains all tones.

They measure grief by it And stand silently still.

They wake to it in the middle of the night And run fast for cover.

The music starts low

In the bowels of the earth

And reaches up into their bowels

And ascends through them

To split the sky like arrows

Such that crashing bombs are anticlimax.

Even little children and the senile Know the subtle nuances Of the siren's ghastly wail And measure their lives and deaths By its meter.

I sometimes wonder whether

The people play those sirens like musical instruments Or whether those sirens Play their people Plucking their silent chords.