Jaws

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I love nature, but - like humankind - it has its dark side. While I have experienced the darker side of human nature at first hand from time to time,  not least for being gay, I suspect other readers will have had similar experiences for various other reasons. It is one of our world’s greater tragedies that different people from different socio-cultural-religious backgrounds are not always born and raised to adopt ways of seeing, thinking, believing and acting that are compatible with a common humanity.

A  complex, often contradictory condition, humanity, not least for being human where the natural world follows natural laws, and needs no excuses for doing so.

Better news is that the kinder side of human nature will always triumph over the cruel, if not always how or when we might prefer.

JAWS

I watched an owl
glide a path of moonlight,
hover a certain spot
before selecting to swoop
on a prick-eared rabbit;
watched the owl penetrate
a cluster of stars,
fiercely clutching its prey,
only to be sucked, in its turn,
into night’s open jaws

I crossed to the spot
where both owl and rabbit
had but followed
the harsher laws of nature
we’d rather forget;
where once peace and quiet,
now scary echoes
pricking my conscience
for holding an act of nature
to a mirror on the world

No blood on my hands,
but tears of mine and moon
for our having seen
life and death as if nothing
to choose between;
walked slowly home
mindful of a sharp chill in the air
and the vastness
of earth and skies sucking me
into its jaws

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; rev. 2018