Word came in, not from the news but our phones,
messages for which we cannot atone.
Our latest failure, a new agony
born from an enemy we fail to see.
It’s strange to me, for long before this pain,
when I thought Providence, I thought of rain—
the kind that eats through three layers of skin,
probing ’til it finds some bone to live in.
But that was all weather-induced, of course—
not from an ill man, exhibiting force.
An uncanny stretch where every visit
brought forth the clouds, but nothing illicit.
Not that it matters—weather means nothing.
It’s not able to decide when we sing.
It’s just a mask the earth puts on each day,
hoping to change how we feel, what we say.
And yet a world away, far from the gloom,
the very next day, where the pig face bloom,
fifteen taken celebrating the sun,
lost at the hands of the mind and the gun.
Two worlds apart, two different seasons,
linked by the lack of any good reason.
And while footprints end in a swill of sand
we debate if it’s the gun or the man.
— ❧ —
Poetry Corner
I typically write poems about nature and the wilderness, but this one had been skirting around my mind for a few days, and I didn’t want to let it slip away. I fear the Brown and Sydney tragedies are already being lost in our collective memory, drowned out by the relentless pace of the news cycle.
For more poems (usually not about politics), head over to In Verse.