THE VIEW FROM WITHIN

dateline: July 21, 2012


Early morning

I wake to the songs

of birds outside

my small window.


To the east

Blue clouds turn pink,

the sky brightens

with the coming dawn.


From a storm drain

a young cat creeps,

feral, velvet black, white feet,

fixated on the singing bird above.


Florida's true orange,

the sun, bursts forth

above the distant tree line,

a symphony of light.


Clear beams illumine

cropped green fields beyond

And rouse bees from sleep

to tend the clover.


Such pastoral calm

is blemished solely by

the grumbles of gun trucks

Securing the prison within.

Charlie