Ragged Lamb

Originally posted 4/23/2011.

Ragged lamb, 
high rock.  

False thunder —
perhaps guns far off, perhaps
a tin roof falling in close by,
somewhere I can’t see.  

That poor lamb,
matted and filthy, bleating
in fear and pain, scared perhaps
by thunder in a blue sky. 

I scramble
to catch her before she falls off the edge 
into the ravine below, but I fail
and she falls — but doesn’t.  

Instead she hovers in mid-tumble
as if held up on a thermal,
as if she is no lamb
but a falcon.  

She is in fact now a falcon,
her claws extended toward me
as if to keep me
from attempting the rescue
that’s no longer needed.

To hell with finding music to speak of this; 
to hell with perfect rhyme
and set meter in the telling.
I’m no singer of mystery.  

That ragged lamb
fell, did not die, 
became a falcon
threatening to tear me up.  
There is thunder 
that is not thunder, 
a miracle that feels foul to me, 
feels unbelievable — but damn, 

it was a real lamb,
is a real falcon, 
a real cliff,
a moment
that feels real

here on the edge
as I wonder 
which article of faith 
in my narrow world
I should risk losing next.