Gun Fight

Was it the kiss of the July morning sun, That lit your face with so much glow, Or the possibility of a meal in an unwary dove, That lifted the glaring muzzle of my silent gun, By the stream’s watchful, sleepless flow. Or the crack in the air of the barrelled whip, That took the fragility of the morning, by the neck, Giving the Baker’s sinful snoring an audio check, As it recoiled and unlocked a well-worn grip, With a sharp, forceful, stinging snap. Now that the songs have ended in one big bang, And the acrid smell of gunsmoke hangs in the air, Who will wonder why it ever so freely sang, Who will now rebel to show life's not fair, And plead justice for a bird and not for hunger. I choose to eat, even if to nourish their voice, Perhaps a clean white ceramic bowl of soup, With soft and chunky pieces of tasty bird meat, And freedom songs in every delicate, soothing scoop, Will keep a fight in this old grey dead-beat, To stand against every longstanding disdain of us; When I the son of a Leper took for a bride, you The loveliest and kindest of seven sultry sisters, Born to a pastor and the matron of a village chorus, That now in judgment, in a gunfight, awakens too.