Donovan's Pantoum

A child screams in the cold.

A man cries for his lover.

A woman dies by the words of a doctor.

A boy bleeds for a victory-less war.

A man cries for his lover,

A woman fights to live,

A boy bleeds for a victory less war,

The sparrow screams for his mother.

A woman fights to live

For her dying child;

The sparrow screams for his mother,

His heart beating pitifully.

For her dying child

She would break the world.

His heart beating pitifully

The last mother cries for her loss.

She would break the world

Told to her by the last father.

The last mother cries for her loss

Realizing only now the truth of his words

Told to her by the last father

‘A person left to themselves destroys’

Realizing now the truth of his words

She sobs as the harbinger of death

A person left to themselves destroys

Absolutely everything.

She sobs as the harbinger of death.

She didn’t want this.

Absolutely everything

Was destroyed by the mother's love.

She didn’t want this,

Sadly Death doesn’t listen to the whimpers of the living.

Was destroyed by a mother’s love:

Man, woman, and child;

Sadly death doesn’t listen to the whimpers of the living

All dead from the love of the mother

Man, woman, and child

Murdered in masquerade masks

All dead from the “love” of the mother,

As she calls it.

Murdered in masquerade masks

She broke the world and

As she calls it

Her universe.

She broke the world and

In doing so herself,

Her universe,

Her child.

In doing so herself,

She had no one to blame for

Her child

Dying by her own deed.

She had no one to blame for

Her sadness. She found ways of

Dying by her own deed

Falling into her patterns of destruction

Her sadness, she found ways of

Giving it to everyone by

Falling into her patterns of destruction,

Forgetting her children who still live.

A child screams in the cold

At his mother who will never raise him.

The woman dies by the words of a doctor

The child is gone.