In that Gospel, all of us are sitting ducks, 

as splenetic, potent storms, plummet over the ridge. 

In that gospel we are defenseless, in the way of

a now-predestined derecho. The future we binoculared 

from the Fifties as coming…coming, is here. This 

morning, disaster restrains itself, the storm not so thirsty.

But ask ravaged houses elsewhere, roof open to the next

fiasco, ask the burned tree, the small bones steaming under

its cauterized trunk. Ask your niece, after an active shooter drill.

I don’t name my prey-bird, turkey-gunned-from-a-maple,

goose in her customary V shot from the sky. I name 

my bird chicken-in-a-coop, sitter-on-the-fence, forager-on-line,

unless she becomes hummingbird, beguiling, mean, voracious, 

compassionless at a plastic feeder’s red slash.