Somewhere Over Burma Poem by Len Webster

I

Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi

The Lady

II

Hovering over Burma
clouds cast shadows

hues of brown and green
crossed by rutlike tracks

pooled on the land
illusionary lakes

undistinguished
indistintuishable

shadows creeping
clouds teasing

soft white lingerers
writing shadows

God's blind view
is ours

angels sky high
oblivious to suffering

journeying painlessly
we stare

unaware of cameras
bearing smuggled witness

for the daily stirring
of a public conscience

ahead a hard day's night
the temperance of the sight below

III

and somewhere in the faded city
The Lady is still waiting

never bending, never turning,
no succubus feeding on the poor

but a lady, iron in spirit,
housebound in her dignity

whose husband Michael
died a cancer ago

while she, proud daughter,
spurned the SLORC*

accepted entrenchment
as a daughter of her revolution

no female Lenin, no Mao,
more Gandhi than Aung San

who left their legacies
at the feet of Judas

IV

away from the city
their stories hidden

the innocents are purged
villages burnt

clusters of shelters
fired to ash

frictioned barrels of guns
obliterating generations

dead fathers, dead sons,
deflowered daughters

succeeding rigid mothers
naked as compost

and SLORC
smiles a name change

as Slorcs always do
believing soothing words

like street hoardings
can smooth out wounds

Peace and Development
bye-words for a soft sell

V

unwritten, the book of Revelation
is carried on the wind

winding a way to Inya Lake
to the centre of the free

into the mystery
of the timebound house

that history that is

The Lady

VI

Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi

The Lady

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* SLORC: State Law & Order Restoration Council (subsequently re-named the State Peace and Development Council)

First published on the author's website (now defunct) . Read at The Orange Studio, Birmingham.

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