Blinding Sun

Reflecting pond

Chilling gusts

Decaying fronds

 

Freshest scents

Rustling sounds

White-streaked sky

Leaf-strewn ground

 

Season’s change

Passage time

Maker’s reasons

Ageless rhyme

 

Spectrum caster

Warmth aglow

Face turned upward

Grace bestow

 

Rock of ages

Wings so frail

Nature’s promise

Ours to fail

 

Seasons cycle

Winds of change

Truth in action

Not so strange

 

Dry stalk grasses

Soggy ground

Earth’s condition

Clues abound

 

Creature comforts

All life seeks

Hold the power

Defend the weak

 

Daily turnings

Yearlong path

Arc unbroken

Through joy and wrath

 

What happens happens

What will will be

Escape unlikely

Yet all are free

 

Editor’s Note: 

Warning: The following poem and photo following the poem may be too graphic for some of our readers.

 

A Note from the Author: 

[This poem] is a reaction to a disturbing sight I encountered recently while walking my dog near my home on a quiet road in Burlington.  A very large and very old egg-laden female snapping turtle was run over while trying to cross the road. She was likely looking for a spot to lay her eggs across the road from a small pond. She would have been moving quite slowly, and given her size, any vehicle operator would have clearly seen her at a distance.  I was taken aback by the violence with which this creature was met. It moved me to write the following:

 

Crushed carcass

Gobs of shell and innards

Glued in violent disarray

To the sickly slick pavement

A palette of reds and pinks and yellows

Like a surrealist painting

A tribute

To our utter ambivalence

Or worse

Our joyous cruelty