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Where the Moon Rides |
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As a boy
I climbed the summer nights
within cool breezes.
Alone
with trees.
Happy,
as I watched in silence,
the journey of the moon
beneath a promise
of stars.
I learned that death comes
as an owl,
... silent!
One cry,
one strike,
and gone.
That is the way of a natural world.
... but War was a screaming bird
in a flaming night
that died
long into the next day,
and again,
the next.
War was a place where all are wounded.
... and no one had time to dig graves.
... and the birds were large and noisy Iron Birds
with iron feathers flapping,
... always gathering
the dead into their belly.
... and then the war fell away,
from so far away.
... just for a while,
in the years after,
those many years after
... I came home.
I am alone again
among the old trees of home.
An old man!
Looking up at the sky
where the moon rides...
far
above the slanted trees.
The stars flash again,
and again.
Sending messages to me
... of far memory. |
By
Lou J. Klaiber
Copyright 2003
Listed
December 28, 2009 |
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