In medias res

21 Years Later, Aung San Suu Kyi Receives Her Nobel Prize

The New York Times, 16 June 2012

... then, with your return flight cancelled

and soldiers armed with silencers standing

on the street outside your house, you'd years

to contemplate other equally arresting views,

jungle-spined cities only machetes could subdue,

and meditate upon your innate nobility,

prise free your walnut panelled aspirations,

every nail screaming like a hanging pig,

and strip your dreams of misty Oxford spires...

... now, standing shoulder to shoulder

with kings and queens and preening rock'n'rollers,

their grains tightly ringed where yours is blank

like balsa, you've space in your heartwood

to write the closing act of Aung San Suu Kyi;

the story unfolds as it began, in medias res...

(c) 2012 Slush Poet