Tears

Under skies brushed with 

Shades of white and grey the

Yellow-rumped warbler sings a

Song of rebirth as cherry-blossom

Petals float past bluebirds and

Goldfinch taking nourishment from

Offerings displayed on red-buds

Concentric circles formed by

Raindrops push white and pink

Segments of corolla to the edges of a

Verdant ostracod universe where the

Untrained eye imagines a

Mechanistic world where blood-oil 

Consequentialism triumphs

Religion honors the wealthy and

Powerful by justifying, even

Deifying, the dominant while

Babies being crushed by war machines

Elicits joyous patriotic pride and

Even an occasional tear on an

Old man’s cheek

But those tears are an acid rain of

Carcinogenic mercury belched from the

Stacks of empires of injustice – 

Tears that amplify the inhumanity that

Causes opossum and grouse to 

Unite their voices with oaks and birch in

Groans of lament

Like the teenage mother in labor

Agonizing in anticipation of the

Manifestation of the children of

God who cry night and day,

“As in heaven so on earth,” echoed by

Every cayote howl and reflected in

Every refugee’s eyes

Herald bids, “Look closer,” the

Drops of rain are playing in an

Inner world brimming with the

Freedom of the birdsong, a tulip’s

Delicate beauty, the fragrance of

Sage and myrrh, and a vast eclectic

Seascape of dancing color

From whence comes this

Kingdom of love where

Grace and mercy flow like

Rivers into cascades of joyous

Abundance and sacrificial love,

Where beauty begets exquisite 

Beauty and kindness is the only sword?

It is born of the tears of every

War, every death, each loss, of

Rachel weeping for her children

Under overseers’ whips and 

Burning child in ruined hut and

Sobbing heart at every grave

Which mingle with the

Groans of each bludgeoned seal,

Harpooned whale, gunshot stork,

And felled tree forced to release 

Life to feed the greed of conquerors

Whose gods insatiably demand sacrifices

From those who can only hear the

Banshee’s brutal laugh.

Tears of woods and gardens, of

Parents and lovers, of the

Broken homeless, are kept by

God in a bottle of remembrance and

Mingled with the tears of the One who

Wept over Jerusalem and sobbed with

Martha at graveside

Tears that Mary mingled with her own

Precious nard in anticipation of the

Ultimate death that would end 

Death.

Forever.

And so, the warbler sings and the

Cherry tree makes its glad offering

(LRT April 10, 2021)