I stare across the yard
	watching robins ply the blades 
   		of grass
Harassing insects 
	gamely munching with the zeal that
		Offspring brings
A feather tilts upon the wind
	with freedom
   		locked within defiance
Of a battle waged by homo sapien
	ignorance
I know too well how rotten
	flow the flattened hills that once
		spread softly in the shadow 
Of the oak
   that lured the lifeblood
      of the native
         breath
Which sucked upon the teat
	that swelled within the fiber
		burning in the roots
Wounding the force of generations
	thickly in the substance 
		of the earth

(c) 1996 James Oliver Smith, Jr