As I sit on this glorious autumn morning of warm sun, I can hear, all around me the sound of gunfire. I defy anyone who is not a completely insensitive brute to listen to the sound of senseless killing and not be angered and sickened by it. A cleave poem for OctPoWriMo’s silence prompt.
A cleave poem is three in one: left side says one thing, right side says its opposite. Read together they make a third poem.
Early morning gold / the shadows lie
thick beneath the trees/ cool and deep—
autumn settles / with a stealthy rustle,
when the only sound is birdsong/ hunters creep
beneath the wing-fluttered hedge/ deer startle into flight
I hold my breath/ as silence breaks with sharp retorts
and russet flashes, gone / shattered the fragile peace
where wild things go / snapped the thread of life
I watch the silence /as death falls on fallen grace
filling the space of beauty lost/ for some warped and dark delight.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
I love the seeming contrast between the left and write and the whole poem reads beautifully.
Thank you. I wish it wasn’t written from first hand experience though.
The irony of a stirring, beautiful piece is that mostly it is written from first hand experience. We write best about things that move us (positively or negatively).
Yes, you’re right. It’s all about sincere emotion, not the kind that inspires greetings cards.
Exactly! ❤️
🙂
so incredibly sad
I’m sick of it. The peace and tranquillity is destroyed by a tiny minority who get their thrills from killing completely inoffensive creatures that just ask to be left alone. It’s no less than murder.
straight up
😦
Wow! This is amazing. I read the unbold first and then the other one. Just brilliant.
Thanks Sunita. I wanted to write about silence, but there just wasn’t any this morning, just in between the gun shots.
Stellar cleave job! I wish you had no inspiration for it ❤
Thank you, and yes, life would be much happier without the reason for this poem 🙂
Yours has been the inspiration for mine today. Thank you!
I hope to get round to more contributions today. We’re having big internet problems and lose it for 36 hours at a time. It’s been stable for a few hours now….
I’ll add a link here when I’m done, so no matter how internet behaves it will be easy to find once you’re connected
Thanks! I’m finding it very difficult to keep track of who and what I’ve missed.
Me too! https://unassortedstories.wordpress.com/2019/10/11/i-lost-connection/
Went and came back. I’ll be over right away while the juice lasts 🙂
Your anger is both justified and beautiful. (K)
Thank you. The world could be so much better than it is.
We’d have to disappear a few people.
A few?
It’s quite a long list actually.
That’s what I’d have thought.
Absolutely wonderful. Both side hold by themselves and then together make another beautiful piece. Such moving imagery as well. You’ve done a good job here.
Thank you! I’m pleased you think it works. Just sad I have such subject matter.
A wonderful cleave–the two sides opposites–but it all fits together. But so horrible. You live in such a beautiful place, but to have that, too, is awful and tragic.
Thank you. I don’t know how long I can take it to be honest. It’s every day for five months of the year. There are only a handful of chasseurs, but it only takes one popping off again and again and you feel as though you’re under siege. There is no justification for it, but they have votes so…
I know there is a lot of hunting in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but not where I see or hear it.
There’s hunting everywhere. In the US though there is more space where no one lives. Here, the hunters invade areas where there is housing.
You definitely can’t hunt in areas where there are a lot of houses, but if you live in a rural area, I suppose hunters may be nearby.
There’s supposed to be a minimum distance around houses, but the hunters have the right to follow an animal they claim is ‘theirs’. It’s just totally wrong. It’s 7.30 pm here and they’re still shooting. They don’t come close to us any more, but they’re in all the wooded areas round about.
So scary! (And wrong, of course.)
In the same way the murder of babies at school doesn’t change gun legislation, the odd cyclist shot by mistake here doesn’t change anything either.
It all makes me so angry. Stupid, horrible people!
There is something inherently nasty in human nature. So many people are either knowingly cruel or they are compliant with it. Which is more or less the same thing.
I love the way that each stands on its own but together work as well. Beautiful thoughts and images!
Thank you! It’s the kind of form that is hard to get right, but very satisfying when it does work out.
Wow! Wonderful created, even the situation is very sad. I hope during creating safety for the nature they will not forget the animals.
It’s not happening as far as I can see. Just more killing. As long as there’s anything left alive the chasseurs will swear blind we are being over run by them.
This sounds very sad, almost like in the Middle Ages. ;-(
In the Middle Ages only the nobility were allowed to hunt. Now it’s any cretin with a gun.
Oh in my opinion they think they are noble, and here in Bavaria its forced to do. Our mayor, and other officials are hunting.
Any excuse to kill things. It’s in the genes of some people.
Wow, Jane, your poem is referenced in today’s #OctPoWriMoDay 8 prompt and I’m so very glad I am here to be transformed by your deep perception. This is stellar.
Thank you! That’s a surprise! Do you have a link?
Convoluted path: http://www.octpowrimo.com/2020/10/octpowrimo-day-8.html which has a link to https://unassortedstories.wordpress.com/2019/10/11/i-lost-connection/ which has the link to your poem https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2019/10/11/silence-broken/. A path so inspirational for my poem today. Thank you.
Thank you! Cleave poems are really hard to get right. I was so pleased when this one came out! I’m thrilled you like it 🙂