Integrity’s  Ledger at Dusk

In the cedar’s split spine, sap beads like withheld truth,
amber eyes of time blinking open, one by one.

A winter river drags its chain of broken ice
like a confession too heavy for the mouth.

Fox tracks stitch a crooked sermon through snowdrifts,
each step a decision that refuses to be erased;
and the wind, feral archivist, catalogues the unsaid
in the hollow bones of reeds, whispering keep, keep, keep.

A heron stand in a ditch behind industry,
its reflection shattered by oil slick rainbows,
even beauty learns to wade through the spoiled.

A horse, ribs like prayer beads, refused the easy gate because
it knew the hand that fed it once struck it

 in a moment small enough to deny.

Integrity, no halo, but a stubborn tendon,
holds the spine upright even when mercy limps.

Yes…

Because we remain the restless species bartering with mirrors,
a mason might aligne bricks like vertebrae,
believing a wall remembers every crooked intent;
a nurse of certitude rinses blood as if washing glass,
each basin swirling with names she would never speak,
an never forget as her hands refuse to lie.

Those believing there is some time left…

Accept the end may come with the lungs shrinking into envelopes of dust.
Some old men sit with their shadows like unpaid debts;
aged women may gather memories from years of bitten tongues,
“I meant no harm,” they say, as if abuse was like a glass-breaking hail storm,
even as their voices crackle open like frostbitten fruit,
releasing seeds of small, fierce truths,
remembering a brother not defended,

a stranger dismissed,

a lover betrayed.

And in one’s diming landscape of breath’s history, growth leans outward,
toward whoever might still hear,
even as some scatter desperate apologies

as if stirring recklessly a flock of starlings,
hoping one will land with forgiveness and a trusting will.

Perhaps integrityis an honor with no favorites, yes?