WREATH UNFURLED [R, 8-18-22]]

 

I choke up a bit

always have

when faced

with the death

of a young man

 

on the streets of Laredo

down in some lonesome valley

in the jungles of cancer

 

It made sense when I was young

the same age as Tom Dooley

the Laos missionary doctor

the other Tom Dooley

hanging from a white oak tree

that young cowboy

all wrapped in white linen

 

I don’t understand them

did not know them

but I am one with them

I hear the drum

its slow banging

I feel the rope

its slow tightening

I see the cancer

its  slow spreading

 

It does not make sense now

this lump in my throat

for I am old and full

of years and mincemeat pie

 

Still I wonder

which I would have been

the doctor

the outlaw

or the cowboy

John Robert McFarland

Bonus observation: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Carl Sagan, quoted in B Square Bulletin.