A small voice the hunter

All The Days We Are Dead

Fruit gets cut, meat hangs to dry,
prayers leak from the lips, water
runs from the eyes. Shall we speak
of all that continues when we are
gone from here? Circles turn a
hawking sky; vultures find their
place in the wheel. Rabbits run
hedgerow to shadebrush, a small
voice the hunter in their radar ears.

These are the days we are dead. No
one remembers to miss us anymore.
We are laid to rest for the rest of
forever and that is the way it is.



Someone we knew rests their eyes
on a near distance and we come to
mind for a brief moment. But water
runs from the tap and there are hands
to wash, dishes to be done, meals to
plan for mouths more hungry than ours.

Season by season the flowers come,
they come and go to where flowers
go before they become again. If this
were the case for us, if Heavens were
possible, reincarnation available, then
so very little of this would matter.

Oaks move shadows across the ground,
limb by limb, hour by lost hour. Sun
burns brevity into the loss of believing
that all of this must mean something.
So this must be enough. It must be
enough or we’re in for a very long life.

Joseph Gallo
August 18, 2009