WHERE WORDS

Where words always
address the moon
and end up as butterflies
by the dark water's edge
in the fountain's wellspring
near the white birches
across a misty river of bones
where my Dutch uncle
and a cherished Resistance hero
is buried by a canal's mangrove
yet still rises in a landscape
in my post war memory
embedded in the park
near a life drawing
of Van Gogh
which could define the ashes
of a generation of eye opened
untangled wounds
in a lacquered shape
with the shadow of language
of liberation day suspended
by neon lighted injuries
feeling abandoned
like a stray cat in the snow
yet knowing the skipped rope
of my cousin Lisa
still kisses the marble ground
of her late father Kim
by contorted canals
flooded by a lasting name
in the winter's gorse light
soon a white incarnation
in a lotus blossom
of a technicolor sunshine
from a ghost still at my mouth
captured by the evil doers
hiding in hallways by his pals
and taken into custody
in the South
was wounded as a freedom fighter
trying to save a fringed refugee
will always arrive blindfolded
in our fingerprinted sadness
taking an overlooked taxi
in Amsterdam alleys.