Where, Really

From far away,
thunder rolls, rolls closer.
Listening,
I lie in bed.
Abruptly it booms.
Recedes again,
keeps rolling.
Pressure builds.
Growling louder,
a distant war
coming closer
Or a mammoth machine, dangerous.
Was it always there,
at the edge of my senses?
Must I hear it always?

A distant bombing
that doesn’t stop
rolling, threatening.
Is it dream or thunder?
Will it stay
on the other side of the world?
Listening,
I lie in bed.
Are they dying, then,
across the sea?
Does thunder stalk?
Is it my ears
hearing?
Closer, closer.
Is the thunder in my blood?

Where, really,
are the wars?
I keep on hearing it,
at the edge, at the edge.
Bombs keep sounding,
lifting hairs on my arms.
Where, really, are the bombs?
At the edge of my senses.
I rise in the dark,
make coffee, contemplate
that others, somewhere else,
cannot rise from theirs.
The rolling in my ears,
will I always hear it?
Must I meet it? Answer it?

Another sound lifts,
a dream descant,
above the thunder.
In this village, every dawn
during the mornings of this month,
October of Our Lady of the Rosary,
they gather at the church.
I hear them singing in the dark.
Voices of women
singing to the Mother
for light, for trust.
Above the battles, a floating descant,
a saving. A taming
of the great rolling growl,
oh! in my own heart.

                             ©Susa Silvermarie 2025