Mercy?

The call I’ve heard, not often
On my travels near this peak,
Was your call. And I surrendered to gaze into the heavens
Where you cross the sun.
I can’t look long, and twice
I’ve caught you in my sight,
One creature alone, at home in blinding light.
But woe now to the prince of the sky,
For once, too long, you flew outside the ray,
And far below a man’s gun echoed it’s roar
Against the canyon walls.
The pain that shakes through all your nerves
Is not enough, for still with pride
You beat the mountain winds,
But fate has clutched your limbs.
You do not fall, that mercy saves our hearts,
You choose your path
And fly to meet your grave.
I have found you now, and gaze in awe up close
At what was once a flicker in our star.
You still have power and beat this wretched earth
Scattering your royal blood
Until resigned to death you stare at me,
As if to say, “How could you be a man? Even you?”
I see the truth you ask for with your spirit eyes,
To live or die, but not to compromise,
You are no prince unless I set you free,
I feel somehow you know it wasn’t me.
The blood be on some distant hunter’s hands,
A man like I’m a man, it makes me ill.
The spirit of the wind asks one act of mercy
From a sickened man.
And so, in silence, with my knife
I end this plight,
But faint though it may be
Beyond the burning flares in heaven
I hear an eagle.


John H. Bidwell