The Black Panther after Every War

We have seen the black panther come down to the fair grasses

of home.

In his eye the reflection of old hatreds, in his jaw the white bone.

Who is this panther that stands in the hollyhocks, in the tossing

of round golden-glows,

Who sniffs the winds over melon vines and the full harvest?

No one knows,

But he seems like the shadow of hopes we had before, -

Plans and strong trumpets and the crunching speech after war.

He seems like the brute power of the spirit's past,

Coming to mock us here, in the garden of rest,

Where this bitterest and last,

This blackest flesh of fighting, we have turned back to loam,

To nourish the sweet blue scylla, the larkspurs of home.

He stands and smells the mellowness that comes after violence,

Yet his jaw has the same shape, there is death in the eye's softness.

He seems to see through us with pity. And what is the bone?-

A remnant, or some foul promise? Will he ever go hence?

Will he leave us alone?