CHAPTER TWENTY: MOURNING SONG

This morning, trees and mountains shook

Yawn and shiver, stretch and quake

The river joined the babbling brook

Now is time to wake

The flowers rose to meet the sun,

miles above the forest

In timely manner she’d begun

warming up the chorus

Mothers stirred their sleeping babes

fawn and pup and fingerling

who from the river, den, and caves

emerged in time to sing

From high above I watched the choir

gather on the forest floor

carpeted with leaves of fire

Earth, a final snore

The swelling sun then set the tone

Choir ready, steady stood

to sing the forest’s morning song

but sing no member would

Another song this morning sung

bellowed deep and shook the ground

A mother’s heavy, mournful wail

Instead the only sound.

I flew toward the awful cry

far too late, damage done

I watched her with a weary eye

lay to rest her son.