Sunday Poems - September 12
This villanelle was written after the 9/11 attacks in 2021. At the time I lived outside of Ramstein AFB and would hear the jets leave the base early at the morning for bombing runs.
Thundering at Daybreak
As cold sweat pours from my body, I wake
to dark hounds feeling at dark gray hares:
to sounds of war thundering at daybreak.
Oh, Holy Fool, quaking for Allah, break
the fox's chains, the fox who cowers in lairs;
as cold sweat pours from my body, I wake
knowing the hound, the fox, the hares will take
us from peace of hearth and home, from our cares
to sounds of war thundering at daybreak.
Beware of false prophets, who shiver and shake,
serpents who delight in killing human hares.
As cold sweat pours from my body, I wake
to falling towers -- a large death. They slake
their blood thirst with innocent lives. Who dares--
to sounds of war echoing at daybreak.
Who dares to strike again? My heart aches.
Is this the end of choice? Must we forbear?
As cold sweat pours from my body, I wake
to sounds of war thundering at daybreak.
Cyn Bagley (c 2001) Published in Acumen literary journal #42 Jan. 2002