Poem #13 for Poetry Month-Alexandrine Couplet #2

Really, when it comes down to it, stories are what matter to me. Egged on by Linda Crosfield at Purple Mountain Poetry, http://purplemountainpoems.blogspot.ca/, I am offering up another Alexandrine couplet to keep the narrative I started yesterday going because it’s been roaming around in my brain since coming across it. Which sounds woo-woo but that’s just the way it works for me. I find stories or they find me! 

I've never forgotten the two lines which began a novel, the title of which I cannot recall, by British writer Caryl Churchill (I think): The crops failed. We sold the children. 

Think about that for a while. This may be it for my ragged clan here though. Someone survived to tell the story so we know they made it. We’ll see how the rest of today goes...

The Rocky Road Home

We huddled in sand caves, drank brown river water

By Day Seven we stopped. One baby, my daughter

gone, and too numb to grieve. Twenty-two wretched folk

survive, with four fading. We are ants, a sad joke

under a white sky, parched, our nest disturbed, we fled.

Three more days, Old Man dreamed. We’ll be safe there or dead

if bad water claims us. Our feet must leave no trace,

Wade in the water, child. Keep up a steady pace.

If the worst does happen, be strong no matter what.

We'll find the rocky road, the Paradise we sought.