It happened in the night
as the golden owl glided by
and the scuttling of tiny mice
scrabbling in the earth for food.
——————–
The flowers slept and the trees
were quiet. The swollen stream
washed their roots and the rain
rolled down in rippling rivulets.
————————
The silent drifting by of a fox,
its mouth clamped close around the
dying body of a farmer’s fowl
slipped by stirring the grasses.
It came through unseen and
a shell shaped bomb biting its
teeth, thumped down trashing
the branches of a bewildered beech.
——————-
The sound stole the air and then
filled the quiet with violence
and its vile opinion
that its self importance was
————————
the decree of men and women.
who sent it forth to murder
and maim. And its life over
the woodland sticks its dead
——————————–
branches and mud flung oaks
out in desperation, reaching out
for the desecration in prayer
for a place
that
is
now nowhere.
