Ash Wednesday: The Great Hawk Cometh 

Still

a gray hawk
and we are
one
and alone
and comforted

blanket me
that I may be quiet

and covered in all my sins
my bones are white and I
and everyone else can see
them popping through my
mortal flesh which is hushed by a dark cloak

fly down now
great hawk and give us
eyes to prey that we too may
sink into flesh after today


-jm 2011