Echoes Of The Unburied Poem by Mario, Lucien, Rene Odekerken

The jungle does not forget,
nor dies the river that swallowed men whole.
Their voices linger in the damp,
drifting between the leaves,
trapped in the rusted bones of old rifles.

Footsteps press into mud,
but time does not move forward here.
It loops, ot drowns, it burns-
a reel of faces,
some known, some nameless,
all lost.

The weight of a gun is lighter
than the weight of memory.
Yet both dig into the skin,
etching their stories into flesh
until the body itself becomes history.

And still, the world moves on.
Children laugh in markets,
flags rise and fall,
names fade from stone.
But in the hush before rain,
listen-
the war is not over.

It only sleeps.