Nocturne After Psalm 42

Oh Lord make me your fawn.
Make me your nestling. 

Soften the riverbed: thread sticks of sunset
amber & aubergine, slick night-dew & prairie.
Make a nest for me near the river’s edge,
you the doe who tramples the tall grass.

Though arsenals are tested and testing
though bombs render cities to rubble
though glaciers collapse into oceans
though seas rise and are rising
though honey bees cease to fly over clover,
though cancer divides and conquers,
though my country is dividing & conquering. 

Lord let me dream these things:
that one day every bomb would burst that they may burst no more.

That each gun would be fired in the forge of this world’s end;
crushed, melted then turned into tricycle wheels 

That we would turn from the scythe, surrender our plows. 

Lord make me your seed bed, make me your loam.
Make me dream O doe I am still.