Wednesday, October 25, 2023

One Being

                   — in memory of Hannah Arendt


the raccoon curls as if sleeping, nose tucked

toward a belly fat from summer feed

the lustrous black-ridged tail of a gray fox

skunk’s pungence, hawk’s wing

twigged legs of an antlered deer

these bloodied remnants soil the road


    as inescapable a part of ourselves

    as the snail’s shell is to its occupant


out of the raccoon’s eyes looks

a Palestinian child, a questioning gaze

as child & raccoon endure their mutual fate

curl & are curled as if sleeping

the two as one being, the raccoon no less

no more than the Palestinian child


    violence changes the world, but the most

    probable change is a more violent world


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