Altars of Forgiveness
Don Hynes
Altars of Forgiveness
The promises of wealth and ease
apart from the land and its toil
divide the people from their birthright
and surface in all manner of deformity –
physical, social and spiritual.
Children and grandchildren not present for the contract
live in the distorted inheritance
of chemical poison, physical suffering
and the grievous pressure of unattended loss.
Far up on the mountain and distant islands
small altars are built with simple totems,
twigs of juniper slowly burn, their incense
raising slowly in the remaining clean air,
a message of remorse to the great Mother
and a shard of hope unseen yet somehow felt
by the vast diaspora of Earth’s children
who wander a wilderness of their own making
yet catching the scent of juniper on the breeze
find solace and hope in a fleeting memory,
the altars of forgiveness guiding them forever home.
Don Hynes