EVEN NOW

Even now
on suburban terrace
of afternoon brooding
it bruises, even lacerates
those pristine images
of barefoot childhood.

It tumbles the trees, scars the hillsides
sends the jagged boulders trundling;
it shoves, pushes, scrapes, excavates
it bruises, lacerates; it amputates, eviscerates.

Its noise pervades
the innermost sanctuary of a brooding mind
it violates the peace we thought we’d made
sunders the truce, roughshods the sacrosancts.

It rankles, even now
and I cannot stanch that wound:
how little did I understand
that pristine morning when I stood and stared
while the blackbird fled,
the mongoose scurried away
the hapless bluecrab
scooped away and crushed.