Post-war deployment

It is thought that cows' unhurried lowing,
the rise and fall in the evening of toad ululation,
the dense sweet penetration of grasses
in air drawn through the nostrils and deep into lungs
will offer our minds a place to return to
from the caves where they cower,
that the route back may be read
in the riffling surface of streams
below which bones are caressed by cold current

It is thought with the sight of the pain bird alighting
and preening each of its feathers gold and particular
that silence will hang like a peach
until one of us reaches to pluck it
and keening begins that will last through exhaustion,
that does not punish or lie

Copyright © 2007 Lee Sharkey All rights reserved
from A Darker, Sweeter String
Off the Grid Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission