Prophecy

A yearling just died in my backyard

After dragging itself from the road

Trying to find where it had been born

The herd was long gone leaving no guard

None to pay the tribute that was owed

Humans were there and they did not mourn

I came home from this life to nurse wounds

But the world’s not kind and did not leave

And home feels so strange and different now

Family feels less like a cartoon

More a sad truth that I now perceive

“They don’t know me” told by their arched brow

A lonely dead tree covered by crows

Black eyes foretell murder and despair

Strange to other trees in grim dark leaves

Loneliness as deep as broken vows

Leaving the ones for whom you still care

Now felt in threads yet to be in weaves

I pity crows but not the forest

One just blights the sight of the other

Other is blighted by the crow’s sight

Cut off by the whispers that chorused

Behind to make doubts of another

That could even share in this tired fight

Maybe they predict worse kinds of death

A death of old age and frown wrinkles

Alone and different on a death bed

The life that gets bored of drawing breath

Can’t speed up the path of sad singles

Late thinking of what should’ve been said

But those crows had each other at least

Friends can keep a lonely life living

Finding new reasons each day to breathe