taking account

Across four thousand kilometres
sitting in concrete comfort,
across a screen, we watch
bodies like ours,
waiting, wailing, wading
sifting, shifting, stifling
falling, flailing, failing
through smoked rubble
of fire and brimstone,
clinging desperately
to remnants of (hi)stories.

scattered piecemeal lives
lived on shrinking strips
of what used to be home.

Memory serves up a map
whose contours have changed
as if drawn on vaporous clouds,
if not desert(ed) sands of untimely time.

Who will take responsibility,
Or perhaps, will we take responsibility
for remembrance and forgiveness
from which thought might be born?

How do we begin to take account?