Darkness descends
Eventually. Inevitably.
The empty day is swallowed whole
By dusk, emptier still.
What do you call a baby pigeon?
(The cavalier question floats into the night)
A diminutive feathered corpse lies motionless
Peaceful in this last light,
Eyes never opened- not once.
Not even to witness the end.
Death arrives in the most precise
Moment.
Not a second early, not one too late.
But what of those that never
Get to live, to age, to wait.
10-year-old Giulia in Italy,
Buried alive by a quake;
Omran, 5, of Aleppo
Covered in the grime of war and prime-time fame,
13 other kids bombed
In the country with no names;
A little girl blown to pieces
In Afghanistan fields-
Landmines don’t get along with soccer;
Hundreds of migrant childhoods
Washed ashore- lungs filled with the ocean,
The only kingdom with shelter to offer.
Death arrives in the most precise moment.
Not a second early, not one too late.
But what of those
Left behind to ache?
Soliloquies of a wanderer 