Poem: Sanctuary

 

Sanctuary

 

each patch of bark

the flank of a beast

which had lived before winchesters:

 

auroch and bison

stampeding up a loblolly

in a vast single herd.

 

i hugged tight

their revelrous snort and scent,

felt the pulse of their hooves

 

across my sternum,

 

my tears not enough

to loose their bellowing wanderlust,

consigned as it was to the trunk of a pine--

 

exiled from those gone prairies

when peregrine vigor

ran muscled and wild.

 

this their sanctuary now, the tree,

where no primate of my greedy ilk

could roam.

 

 

 

 

 

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8/19/25 ... clarified a phrase

7/14/25 ... changed a word