Measures

Robert Ray Black 3

If in sudden trauma peptide hormones called endorphins, which have pharmacologic properties of opium, are released, the body feels no pain during the moments shortly before death. Two men assured policemen who had hastened to their rescue that they were in no pain at all as they sat patiently in the front seat of their car while others tried to pry the steering wheel and front dash from their crushed torsos, then calmly died within minutes. And so it is with old men in whom some other chemicals must be released over time, gradually, as if from a capsule for a cold, as they become more and more patient and tolerant of hellish people who in younger years they would have shot dead or skinned or buried alive, but at whom now they merely smile. All this letting go as a measure more of dripping chemicals to a titration point, than knowledge gained, or love learned, or prudence, or fright.

Life Like Green

In the dead tree on the boundary Of our back yard birds routinely gather. Blue jays and painted buntings. Mocking birds and cardinals and other locals. No leaves are on the tree. Its thick dark branches rise forty feet Into the air and stand in sharp relief to The green foliage of other trees surrounding it. Sharper still is the sight of the birds that Land on the branches, their bright Colours distinct against the dark dead branches. I often sit on the back porch and wonder what Attracts them to their perches so exposed. They never stay long, but like tigers in the snow Each leaves a spot of paint against the Dark dead branches to give again the colour Of life like green as they leave.