A Prayer For The Unsuspecting

may God banish from your heart

your mind the little rattlesnake remarks

that caught you from behind

beside within the corridors of dream

when you weren't looking;

when you were lulled by beauty

and did not know where you were;

suddenly caught up in the lights that

arced the wide skies into night

unmindful of the hissing in the gulch

at your feet,

the writhing stars above you;

the roses scarred in front of the sod house

where you must have imagined your freedom

from forever the little rattlesnake remarks

that lodge with the cherished with the unsuspected;

caught in the rainstorm that becomes the flood,

the gushing over the aqueducts,

observed too late.

the war was only rumored overnight;

daylight exposed the rude plane

down in flames;

their long white dawns uncoiled

mary angela douglas 4 august 2014

Note on the poem: "rude" only in the sense of simple, rudimentary.