After
Todd Osborne

 
            After Charles Wright
 
in sunlight, everything feels like Mercy,
the grackles hopping like nuns upon
 
a broken path,
                          their eyes pinned on us
as we kneel into the ground we
 
love, fold our hands and wonder who
 
will save this land next. What have
we taught each other, what learned?
 
The sky is running forward, to
find itself broken like the broken path, to preach
at those of us
                         with listening ears, but
not listening hearts. There is not
 
a reason within us, nothing to
say, no action left but to pray.
 
 









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About the Author: Todd Osborne lives and works in Hattiesburg, MS, where he is also pursuing a PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. His poetry has appeared in the Missouri Review, Big Muddy, Juked, and Arc Poetry Magazine.

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