It is one a.m. and I have been awakened
--roused, really, for who can sleep when the sky has been falling since noon?--
roused, then, by paparazzi lightning and a drumline of rain,
relentlessly keeping beat upon my shelter.
As I shuffle across the hall,
my hand runs lovingly along the north wall
grateful for its vigilance against the storm.
And, where sleep should return, there is only an ache.
--A memory of Cardinals
tucked into the nest just outside our back room.
A not-so-distant storm, its long, wet fingers
forever rushing down the awning,
stopping finally--fatally--in the twiggy home just below it.
I wake the next morning to a yawning earth
burbling the remains of the night's long drink.
And silence, too. A nest of broken, quiet bodies
huddled against the odds.
That damned awning came down within days,
forever stained by the long, slow night of death it brought.
A Judas where a Noah was needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment