Éclaircissement

Éclaircissement
by DF Lewis

A set-aside for nesting birds.
A wet landslide for shifting burrows;
Dusk is never black enough for herds
To hide between a shepherd’s furrows.

Towards dawn, after a steady night,
A blindside mole climbs the cheeks
And settles between each eyesight,
Now sniffs the shepherd’s nose for leaks.

As day half-opens its new éclairs,
The mole makes mountains out of hills;
Our kids still dream of schoolyard snares;
The shepherd wakes and quickly kneels.

Most animals soon bend their knees
In tune with the shepherd’s stance;
And versions of their prayers and pleas
Wriggle from the blotted sky’s mischance.

The urge to merge, to mix cake with cake,
All with eager gloom, a shuffle or a shake,
So to tread upon and within each other,
Each kid knows not one from another’s mother.

The shepherd’s mole is burrowing deep,
Burrowing till not even Care can weep.
The hills heave and shove a mountain beast,
A bray of prayer for dawn to shine at least.

It is luck our shepherd’s still a-kneeling;
He knows a runny nose is not appealing.
His brow is severely creased with hollows;
Faith has furrows but dawn still hopes and follows.

The brayer God does rear on huge hind-legs;
Reaping dawn’s sneeze to yolk our nest of eggs.
Untimely darkness moats round landslid pain;
Someone has left Earth’s cake out in the rain.

(a poem that was written yesterday)

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