Rain Softens the Horizon
Earth Breathes Quietly
A Quacking, Flapping
Urgency of Ducks rises, flees.
The Red-Tailed Hawk StaysHe Makes Eye Contact
A Glance Over His Shoulder
Tail Feathers ShakenHe Raises His Wings
As If Stretching and Rises,
Floating Into Air
Effortless, He Glides
By, Holding My Eye, Watching
Silent, Moving, Still
One Circle, Then Two
I am appraised. He is not
Afraid or Impressed
So He Turns His Head
And Slides Away, Mystery
Above the Deep Snow
We turn to Glory
And Away from Blood Until
We are Overwhelmed
Taken by the Chaos
Of Forgotten Memory
And We Cannot Breathe
As That Memory
Weaves our Shared Tapestry More
True than Any Fact
Full of Glory and
Our Bloody Hands, Survived By
Our Forgiving Hearts
Will We Never Learn
To Answer With Something More,
Different, Beautiful?
Trade Violence For Calm,
Hear Hatred With Love, Guns with
More than Blood and Breath
A New Kind of World,
Not One Gone All Blind In a
Furious Eye for Eye
Salvation Is Ours,
Found Only With Gentle Hands
Open Hearts, and Time