A Day of Reckoning


Forenoon, it had been raining during the night
the wizened winter landscape was now green
and amongst olive trees long-legged sheep grazed;
their pastor and, on occasions, executioner, sat on
a boulder casting dreams into the future; man and
beast, rustic peace, pity I hadn’t a camera.

On my way to the village to buy the papers, a sheep
had been run over by a truck, with its stomach burst
open and its content glinting in the sun, it was still
alive. Ah, you dumb animal abandoned by everyone  
it looked at me without any hope of deliverance,
so I reversed my car and ran over its head.

As the skull was crushed its eyes popped out, landed
in the middle of the road that now had eyes to see
with, the shock of this made it shudder a long rent in
the asphalt ***** black tears trickled. Quickly  
I threw the eyes into the thicket which was instantly
transformed into a field of tinkling bluebells.

From nowhere a road gang of small, denim- clad men  
with big hats appeared, they were badly paid lived
on road kills. Expertly strewing soft sand on blood, filled
cracks with healing asphalt, and off they drove with
their dinner. Empty road it had no knowledge of what
had just occurred, it was up to me to remember.