~REGINALD GIBBONS~

REFUGE

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Beyond the suburbs, armed
bulldozers crush the libraries
of wildflowers, religions of
the butterflies are suppressed,
hamburgers force their way
even into the forests that
never before had been
cut, there they impose
administrative districts of
the bewildered star fields
of bright trillium that
constellate the ground…
But farther in, farther for
a little while yet,
the sister saplings still do
not tell their myth, they whisper
warnings to each other, blue-
feathered heads abruptly
look up from their reading
of acorns, tall leafed
beings breathe out
benevolence and each grass
stem no different from
innumerable others happens
to move in the soft sweet
air in such a way as
to be fully itself, singular,
it sways gracefully,
alone now, alone, unafraid,
the center of the world.
 
 

© by Reginald Gibbons