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Blood Crying from the Ground
By Maurice C.
Fields
Casual the night, and dark to
cover --
casual night to shield the casual killers:
passionless the brutes, emasculate,
degenerate -- inhuman -- decadent. . . .
Moloch usurping God; will turned
caprice:--
crushing the fly down, grinding the worm to dust.
The cold resolve -- the jaded coup de tète:
"Let's kill a nigger ---
kill him for the thrill
kill him for the hell.
Which one? Oh, any one a shot can plug. . ."
SHAME, WE HAVE CRIED UPON THE
CRUEL HUNTSMAN,
SPEEDING A WANTON SHOT 'MID
SOUTH-WARD GEESE,
DESTROYING WINGED LOVELINESS TO
SHATTER
THE BEAUTEOUS ARC IN MURDEROUS CAPRICE --
WOE, WE HAVE CRIED AGAINST THE
SLAUGHTERING HUNTER,
RAVISHING OF LIFE THE GENTLE
DEER IN FLIGHT,
SPILLING THE THROBBING LIFE AND
BRINGING UNDER
THE REGAL ANTLERS; DULLING THE
GAZE TO NIGHT.
STILL -- THESE WERE SOULLESS --
ARROWING BIRD AND DEER --
WHAT OF CHRIST'S CREATURE,
BUTCHERED, DEPRIVED OF PRAYER?
"poor bird -- poor bird --
poor frighted deer ---"
Alas!
Darkly they come---
assassins!
---secretly,
drag him from covert, set the
target running,
aim gleaming barrels, belching
fiery death. . . .
Monstrously riddled -- prey to
bloody gunning ---
the stunned soul gasps, wavers,
and yields up breath:
no more to capture flying attitudes,
love's pain-sweet ecstasy, the surge of Spring;
Fall's quiet raptures, hearth-beatitudes,
the quickening taste of Life, the urge to sing---
poor Dispossessed, robbed by the
Judas-thieves,
pillaged by brothers of your gift
from God!
Fouling quiescent earth, what
piteous cry
your violate blood screams from the outraged soil!
HAVE WE THEN SUNK TO THIS --
BELOW THE BEAST --
DEGRADED RELICS OF A CHRISTIAN
RACE,
WHO CLAIMED A GOD-HEAD FOR
INITIAL SPRING --
TO THIS--
ABHORRED OF MAN----
ACCURSED OF GOD?----
How lightly sheathed the loathsome savage sleeps!
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