Why?

 He stood silent and bent against an encroaching wind

and he wept inwardly…

For a vision of the past whispered boldly to his heart.

ever reminding him the lesson of a dying lark.

He knew not of what had elicited this day’s peculiar dream

Yet he lived it this moment with vivid clarity and ease.

His mind slipped softly now over the golden fields of yore

and he traveled past a hedge which bordered a gentle laughing stream.

He could smell the sweet perfume of hyacinth, jasmine and lavender.

He could even taste the rays of the morning sun as they licked upon his face.

He was a child again, and without the burdens which lurk along life’s way.

It was here that he could see all the glory that God had made,

and it was here, in this golden field that he first learned of the truth of pain.

The day was clear, and the air was soft to his touch.

 His heart was filled with joy until he heard a screeching rustle in the brush.

He stood still, afraid to even move, and he strained to see

 what had caused such a commotion in this golden world so lush.

It was then that horror first entered his innocent little mind.

For there on the ground lay an injured bird,

and next to it…a fox that was preparing to dine.

Anger now replaced the fear that was in his delicate heart.

 He with swiftness charged the fox, thus sending it scurrying away from the injured and dying Lark.

He then knelt quietly by the little birds side.

He scooped it up in his small hands and began to openly cry.

He looked down at a bloody and broken wing

And he watched helpless as this creatures life passed from within the grasp of his hand.

Looking up now into the brilliant blue sky…he asked a  single question

that has followed him all his long and traveled days…(Oh God…Why?)

He buried the bird that day, and he never forgot.

For it was by this that he learned how precious life truly was.

He thought now upon all that he had known and how they too,

like the lark of long ago have passed from his tenuous grasp.

He leaned harder now into the howling wind

and asked again that little boys question…(Why Oh God, Why?)

J. Allen Wilson © 2006