Clouds as Inkblots for the War Prone
       

Consider the earth as more than a speck in the night,
sky more than chalk on a warboard. Consider a swarm,

thick, an advancing cloud. Perhaps to the stouter brain,
such darkness becomes a far-off foe, slight, with no more

than spit enough to swallow. To the hair-triggered eye,
it may be the fog of four thousand fighters in flight,

each with a finger touch, light like the broken angel's
wing. We know all gunners spit flame. So let the swarm be

a rush of bees. Let it be a bevy of starlings,
birds beyond number, newly fledged. Let it be a bright

mission of youth, our familiars, not yet thunderborne,
their young faces never to want for a kickstorm

of lead, never to bore-in once more unto the breach,
for God and country, for money, with a command
of death and a gladness to kill.

Tweet

Copyright © 2020 Nancy Chen Long All rights reserved
from Wider than the Sky
Diode Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission