The cloud hanging over the valley has been there forever <br />Trains come from the coast cross it without stopping <br />Gloomy travelers would photograph the cemetery but not the children, despite the <br /> little bells they wore on their ankles <br />Standing on the rooftops <br />We loosed their names in the air with holiday balloons <br />We invited them to share the cries of our ears of corn <br />And touch the mouldy robe of the Saint in her reliquary <br />We would beg them to carry away in their luggage the wind's hyena laughter when it <br /> rained on the winter <br />And rained on the cemetery and the well-preserved smiles of the dead cramped <br /> beneath their windowpane <br />And the mothers shook out the sheets to drive away stubborn souls and <br /> when they cried for no reason <br />With the same movements the mothers drove off jackals and God who had no place in <br /> their beehives <br />Nor in our book whose pages we turned in the other direction than the planet's <br />turning.<br /><br />Venus Khoury-Ghata<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cloud-hanging-over-the-valley-has-been-there-forever/
