Massacre

He was alone in a purple desert
littered with indigo outcrops of
razor quartz,
the desert wind was light as a butterfly's sigh,
but hot as a forge in summer
smelting dreams.
Moonlight slapped sand and rock
as he wandered through knee high gorse,
another pinpoint of thought
amid stars and dunes,
a nomad of the mist.
Then he woke in a sweat,
sheets drenched,
to news of slaughter in Paris,
and the desert was red
and the stars fled
and butterfly sighs became tears.