Writers Against Prejudice:- Number 37
On Hearing of Jo Cox’s Last Words
June 18th 2016
My husband is out in the June sunshine
filling the bird feeder, hanging it back
by the bay tree. They have been waiting for him;
a finch is first, then a sparrow, the pair of collared doves.
Blessed are those who feed the birds,
like Saint Francis, who knew them as kin.
The roses hang, heavy with blooms,
but the fuchsia, today, its myriad scarlet droplets,
can do nothing.
She died in too much pain, that life
that served those in flight from harm,
stolen by knife and gun, her world work
done.
I watch the birds, their to and fro. Blessed
are those who build the kin-dom.
A lone feather lies in the grass,
the sunshine catching its iridescence.
A breeze is picking up, lifting it on.
smithsurf 