October Prayer

for eem


Each steadily darker morning
offers sure evidence of autumn.
Sometimes whole, sometimes eviscerated:
proud trophies of hunter cat.

There was a time I elected to join palms
to these once sentient beings.
Perhaps I should begin again.

Ravenous chaos permeates the air.
Wall Street disemboweling Main Street?
Illusory election with extreme right
playing for centrist, centrist for liberal left?

Scrappy rudebekia & spidery cosmos
still campaign from garden soapbox.
Sharp blade to those with beauty left to offer.
Whisper of gratitude before metal snip.

Hard to know whether the nation will persist
with this course of heady cruelty, greedy death.
Don't wish too hard -- it might hurt too much afterwards.

Is this so-called hopemonger any true friend of the Poor?
The last president from Hope enacted welfare reform
that had nothing to do at all with the Poor faring well.

My friend says a nation will always
elect the leaders they deserve.

I join these hands now and pray it is not so.


(cc) Karen G. Johnston