There is so much to love
this evening:
moist air, clouds roiling
lit by city light,
crickets promoting themselves
from their green world
of grass and ivy.
Who are we to think
we need more than this?
Wind rakes the pathways
with the scent of lemon
and sweet alyssum
but our hands are soaked
in the blood of everything
we have destroyed.
Look up at that crack in the sky
where the clouds have parted:
The moon bathes us
with its forgiveness yet
we are guilty, guilty as the crows
that have murdered the sparrows
and then returned to their place
on the telephone wire,
where just this morning
a pair of them were kissing
in the fire of the sun’s
fierce light.
