~T.R. HUMMER~

EVENING REPORT

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From a rural hilltop we observed unusual lights
    just above the horizon: diffused illumination
Like sheet lightning, though of greater intensity,
    and while it is true that after some minutes
A low rumbling reached us, we agreed it was not thunder,
    its pitch and periodicity being too unpredictable.
One of us remembered how, in the ancient songs,
    angels appeared to shepherds, and our sheep
Were, in fact, unsettled by the sky, and so we wondered.
    But by morning the shrapneled bodies were arriving, carted
Miles from the destruction, to be sorted and burned.
    Their anonymous smoke was observed by some
As a language of crosses over the vapor trails
    Resurrecting themselves steadily on the eastern horizon.

 

© by T.R. Hummer