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 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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7/14/25 ... changed a word