From the Wreckage

author's note:

Actually, I think this is a good poem for the beginning of Spring.


FROM THE WRECKAGE

As I watch the shattered jet
smolder in a field...

I notice the wreckage resembles a cross

and begin to wonder if
I'm only using this crash
to mourn my own private losses--

I had to kill
so many childish kings
with their commands and castle dreams
so that my kingly child might live:

this slow painful sacrifice
is still in progress--

no, I haven't quite arrived
at that new life.

But though I've reason to mourn
I'm ashamed to have descended
into self-pity
while witnessing a tragedy

however...

this release of grief
opens a well of feeling

and so, I suddenly swell
with true empathy for the many
who'll be deep-struck
by the shock of this loss

then realize:
we're together in grief

and also
together in hope:

as a woman wearing a hood
lifts a baby from the ashes
an artesian tear rises in my eye:

though I know a shadow
will haunt that child
from this time forward...

when I see
that small tear-streaked face
I again believe
in the new life
that follows in the wake
of all our sacrifice.

© 2017, Michael R. Patton
Butterfly Soul: poems of death and grief and joy