Words of Prey
It is Sunday
and birds of prey are feeding.
That which is ripped asunder
beneath the talons of a raptor
has died a grisly death
and it somehow seems inappropriate
for such to have transpired
on a day which many deem
the Sabbath.

That the Sabbath be on Sunday
rather depends on your orientation of faith.
Yes, it’s Sunday if the name Jesus
has some special significance.
And yet it could be Saturday
should you favor the name
Abraham, or Friday if
Mohammed holds sway.

The feathered predator,
which at this moment is devouring
some other variant of God’s creation,
cares not as to whether this is
Sunday, Saturday or Friday.
Nor any other day for that matter.
Each and every day is the same
when it comes to survival.

And as you open the Good Book to
Jonah 1:17,
there outside your window,
the robin gets its proverbial worm.

Should I ask you to visualize this event,
a curtain lifts
and some Disneyesque animation
rolls before your eyes.

But no... Not so fast.
I’m not going to let this be
easy for you.
Bad things happen when you
as a creature
are ingested and pass
into the belly of another.
Though swallowed whole,
that worm has not been given
a respite where it kicks back
and talks to its creator.

Bad…
Very bad things
are happening to that worm
and as you sit there,
cocooned in that insular world of
the Good Book,
I want you to ponder the existence of
enzymatic acid.
How every day of the week,
certain creatures swallow other creatures
and while doing so,
do not pause to contemplate the
sequence of the day.

No. They exist in a reality whereby
the Sabbath is just another passing
from dawn to dusk and beyond.
Indeed, nothing more than
a recurrent ordeal
where lesser and larger
step into the light
and pray to stay alive.

©06 Jack Hubbell