By Degrees

Standing outside here there is blue sky
and clouds scudding in from the north.
Today the tide reaches its long fingers through the marsh grass
flooding the shallows into pools
where minnows offer themselves up as snacks to the herons.
Here there is quiet broken only by birdsong
and dogs taking their runs on beaches and forest land.
In this town people will meet for coffee
and pick up their mail; decide where to lunch with a friend.

Standing outside there at another geography
the sky hangs low and grey with smoke and ash
from repeated bombings and atrocities.
Today it is not a safe place to be anywhere
but hunkered down below ground
behind the concrete and under the radar.
There it is noise, discordant and jarring
the wailing of loss, the grinding of armored vehicles
the whiz of incendiary fire and beneath all that,
the rumble and twist of empty bellies.

There is no middle ground.
Even as some sit in security, a frisson of fear
snakes its electric charge between the hours of the days.
It is said that to every action there is a reaction
and the butterfly effect must begin that ripple
just as a drop of rain falls onto the
glassy surface of a pond.
Even as we stand here watching the clouds
the ripples widen and draw us forward,
The smoke and ash are at our shoulders.
We inhale the same fractured air.