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A Visit to the Aviary
In a dusty defiled desert a once clean child cries, contaminated
His cries echo off of indifferent walls; built in front of his face and his culture
These walls are high;
Ringed with razor wire, shiny - just how the ravenous ravens like it
These walls have tall frightening towers with leaden death hidden,
Hidden behind mere bags of innocent universal sand
Their occupants, like buzzards,
The harbingers of death themselves, they keep their vigil
The child cannot fly - only the birds can do that, in this land it is known
All is red.
The soldiers came out from behind the walls just yesterday
Come from beyond the wall where he knows his fathers once lived in peace
With those birds of paradise, now birds of death
Once, once in a time where lambs were not murdered by their avian brothers,
Once, once things were different, when the red in front of his eyes
Did not belong to the blood of his little sister,
Once, his Aalam*, now his eternal sorrow
Once so full of life, now carrion killed by the frenzied feathered flight of a mortar round.
He has no family, not even a homeland to call his own;
Killed by the buzzards, stolen by the buzzards, the buzzards perched on the wall
In a dusty defiled desert a once clean child cries, contaminated.
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