By: Hunter Christian
A desolate landscape
Swampland abound
Eager saplings raped of sunlight
By skeleton trees haunting
Murdering crows take measure
A vantage-point assured
Swiftly sparrows jockey
For position in this unearthly wasteland
A spotted fawn\'s decomposition
Stimulates the turkey vultures\' drive
Pungent death plots the dead fawn\'s position
For the scavengers of the sky
Diving down the vultures dive
The crows follow suit
The sparrows too
Winds blow mixtures of life and death
To the rapture and the pew
Wafting through the church window agape
To the widow\'s son
The preacher, his sermon, and a Medieval crossbow
The hunter preacher who deigns a gun
Of God and man and ape and evolution
Of Leviticus, the Pentecost, Ecclesiastes – on this Sabbath Day;
Creationism hath won
To the boy, nature has its own form of justice
A judge and jury too
An executioner at the ready
Crimson stains imbue
On grassland canvases
On desertscapes
streetscapes and seascapes
A body shamed enrobes
As vanity\'s narcissism disrobes
Societal constructs of ethnicity, creed;
of the myriad races
Satan tests the piety of righteous Job
Old Job remains in God\'s good graces
God advances no legal tender
His disciples carry no currency
Gabriel has marked no sender
No angels extend wings in urgency
Nature has its order
A boy aged ten surely sees
God judges man superior naught
To the crow, the vulture, the sparrow, the tree
Whether swampland or grassland
Jungled rainforest or concrete urbane
The boy wiser than a man of God;
a forced member of a congregation insane?
Determinism contradicts free will
The boy deign to swallow that jagged pill
“Am I the fawn, the crow, the vulture, the sparrow,\"
The boy sends a prayer upwards to God?
“No son, you are the instrument of death; you are the hunter\'s arrow”
The boy’s retort sinking beneath his breath,
“But thou shall not kill, doesn\'t anyone find this contradiction odd?”
“Question me not boy, for I am the Lord – your creator, your God!”
A wily sparrow plucks the fawn\'s eye from its socket
The vulture dining on intestines, yields the heart to the cunning crow
The hunter places a majestic feather in his pocket
A prop for his sermon on the morrow
As for the boy – denial of nature, hypocrisy, and contradiction is all he knows
Black wings unfurl in the boy\'s peripheral
An ominous sense of sorrow
washes over the boy as;
upon a window\'s ledge, a crow claims his perch
The harbinger hits the boy hard-fast and true
Those who lurch in this wasteland church;
care not of evidentiary truth, if truth-be-told, and that doesn\'t require faith to prove
The boy rests his addled head against a goodly old birch
Of the boy\'s beliefs, do you disapprove or wish to reprove;
Or perhaps, arbitrarily castigate, discredit, berate and besmirch?
Are you the crow upon the windowsill, its cold stony perch?
Do not forget to return your hymnal, before you leave the church.