BUT O WHAT COST…

Hereford and Holstein Calves at Kids’ Farm, Smithsonian National Zoo, Washington, DC

One Holstein and one Hereford,
Black and white and white and tan,
Adam’s sweet and gentle wards,
Symbiotic beasts of Man

Daisy licks at Lily’s neck,
Lily turns a placid eye
Toward September’s candle wick,
The sun descending in the sky

Now the farmer sweeps their barn,
Bedding makes it clean and snug,
All the cattle lie down warm
The smell of hay is like a drug

And now they sleep and dream of some
Meadow that’s their kingdom come,
But O what cost it is to keep
Such cattle peaceful in their sleep

SWIFTS ARE HUNTING…

Chester A. Reed (1876–1912), “Chimney Swift,” in *The Bird Book,* 1915
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Swifts are hunting,
They glide and hover,
Recede and come again

Great clouds thunder
Above blue sky

They bank and bend
Their wings to warp
And straight again

Great clouds thunder
Above blue sky

Quick and light
Their spiral flight
They take their prey

The great clouds thunder
Above blue sky

Gray and deep,
Or luminous
The rose clouds keep

The great clouds thunder
Above blue sky

They glide and grow
Swell and show
Their height and depth

Above blue sky
The great clouds thunder

THESE THREE

Seventeen-year Cicada
Photo by Pavel Chichikov

Cicadas winding
Mighty ratchets’
Unison

Deafening
Persimmon and viburnum
Sounding

Red-eyed green
The little monsters roar—
What for?

They scrape
Once more this year
To breed

To reproduce
Their sacred
Multitude and seasonal

But only we
Can multiply
Faith, hope and charity

And when there are no more of us
These three alone
Will sing and bless

We make summer nests from spider webs and lichens
But they make summer nests from scintillating photons,
You can see us hover above the garden flowers
But we can see them hover above the daylight hours

If we only we could share a human sign or tongue
We could name the beings you often pass among,
But since we have no way except by flight and feather
Read what we can say: We pass through life together

We the light ones see in summer sunlight rare
Forms of wingéd daylight shimmering in the air
Around the flowered altars of the Lord’s belovéd meadows,
And where the boundary of praise within perception narrows

Can’t you see them flying, can’t you see them hover?
Now they dance the day away, in shadows seek their cover

THE PHARAOH’S CURSE

Bird and Gods in Ancient Egypt (Generated by AI)
Courtesy Facebook

I’d rather hear a mockingbird
Above the plants that bloom,
Than any pharaoh overheard
Muttering in his tomb

For one can fly and sing and perch
And imitate a song,
The cantor of a living church
Where everyone belongs

The other is a miser fed
On spiderwebs and mold,
He is the pharaoh of the dead
And all of them are cold

The pharaoh was a living god
Who ruled the river Nile,
But only as a counterfeit
And only for a while

To be the ruler of the dead
It is the pharaoh’s curse,
To be a living mockingbird
He would not be averse

BUT O WHAT COST…

One Holstein and one Hereford,
Black and white and white and tan,
Adam’s sweet and gentle wards,
Symbiotic beasts of Man

Daisy licks at Lily’s neck,
Lily turns a placid eye
Toward September’s candle wick,
The sun descending in the sky

Now the farmer sweeps their barn,
Bedding makes it clean and snug,
All the cattle lie down warm
The smell of hay is like a drug

And now they sleep and dream of some
Meadow that’s their kingdom come,
But O what cost it is to keep
Such cattle peaceful in their sleep

ON HOLY GROUND

Gebhart Fugel (1863–1939), “Moses before the Burning Thorn Bush
Diözesanmuseum Freising
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

A burning bush is what they said
But it was only metaphor,
A weak and faltering plant of words
For what he saw

And what he heard
That was no desert bird
Nor tamer sound:
Take off your sandals, child
You stand on holy ground

CONTEST

Fifth Station of the Cross
Courtesy Catholic Virginian

Seven decades suffering, loads of grief I’ve born,
My back is almost broken and the heart of me is worn,
What might the weight of wood have been? Not heavier than those,
I am no god to shrug them off; You rolled a stone and rose

See these bloody balks of wood?—He bore them on His shoulder—
Help me with the smaller beam, not all of it, a corner.
I felt the solid heft of it, a portion of the length,
It crushed me to my knees and it took away my breath

It crushed me too, my brother, the weight is grief and sorrow,
Earth’s unholy trinity: the past, today, tomorrow;
Murder and indifference, dominating pride,
Hate and lonely avarice, joy and love denied

But if you want another load, here’s My orphan lamb,
I slung it round my shoulders, a shepherd called I Am.
I lifted up an infant as heavy as the cross—
That is the lamb of innocence, the name of it: Love Lost.

It’s heavy as the other, take the weight away
Or I’ll be driven down like a billet in the clay;
Give me back my life again, maybe I can bear it.
It isn’t more than you can lift, but even so I’ll share it.