two crows fly across the window
grey clouds dense as pillows
fill an uncertain sky.
I spoon cereal at the table
from a bowl with a blue stripe

heading into Serbia
two stealth fighters
cross the television screen
flying into a grey silk morning

women clutch shawls,
babies, each other

killings translated in fast newreader voices
with English accents, lose impact –
tractor-pulled carts edge around hillsides in snow
a child is swung over a campfire in a blanket
a man’s face speckled with blood –

followed by the weather report
predicting, as expected, rain later

I drive to Burwood for a meeting
negotiating through traffic –
finding the right colour-coded carpark
becomes the crisis that focuses my day

and I wonder if the people in Pristina
– not the villages, picturesque even
when burning, but in the city –
were doing something like this
before the killing started