The Lost Among Us

I don’t know their names but I know their faces

      and they’re not here.

I’d like to think that what is true
cannot recede or be forgotten.
Like faces. Like names. Like the lost
among us. The disappeared. Stolen.
Beyond recovery. No longer recognized.
Or just dead and buried.
When the earthquake took away
most of a nearby village and part of hers,
the woman who survived told a reporter her story,
her search, digging for those who could not be found.
Among them two of her children.
Of course, it’s not the same thing, that pain,
but, in a way, it’s like a disease of the elderly
where names and faces disconnect
then cannot be recognized or recalled.
Nothing can make them come back.
They cannot be recovered from the debris
no matter how deep or long you dig.
It’s as if you no longer have the ability
to understand why you are digging,
or know why and when you should stop,
until someone claiming to be your son
or daughter or spouse, or someone
who lives nearby, takes the shovel
from your hands. Someone whose face is there
but whose name is amongst the missing.
So you let them have the shovel
because it seems to be very important
to them now, but you don’t know why.
Maybe they want you to rest for a while.
Maybe they just want to help you dig.