Death In The Afternoon

first hurt of feeling leaves you
grievously bereft; tiny bodies
random scattering with missing
heads expressed unnaturally

worse to charge yourself with blame
for Nature’s ways – or foully curse
an opportunist cat* presumed its
architect, plan a grisly fate

you’re dead, you mutter darkly
in your abject state – but yet
find tenderness to bless survivors
left amongst the ravaged carcases

two survivors of this wanton spree 
© 20 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

* This poem tells of the aftermath of a 
domestic cat's deadly incursion into a 
new hatch chicken coup