The pounding crush of the falling

Rhine waters has no end unlike

these tiny foreground

figures who reach and

stretch to accomplish their

small tasks, muscles straining,

reaching, stretching,

yearning.

 

A few feet from this Turner is one of Manet’s

oils of the shooting squad execution of

fake Mexican Emperor Maximilian, a

fool if there ever was one, but

aren’t we all

fools who

end in the

vague smoke

awaiting the

coup de grace?

 

What, though, is the alternative?

The urgency, as Brooks says, is in

the blooming

amid the noise

and power

of the flood.

 

We are all, victims and butchers, crushed

by the same cataract,

slain by the same

bullet. You and me and

David.

 

Patrick T. Reardon

1.25.18

 

This poem was originally published in Requiem for David from Silver Birch Press in February, 2017.

 

Written by : Patrick T. Reardon

For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.

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