Bringing Peace

Notes for the Post-Fable

The bringers of peace
will always be surrounded
by the circling dogs

and the circling dogs are circling because
it is the peace of dogs to circle.

The blue heron
calmly, suddenly,
in its ambition
toward the peace of old instinct,

snaps up
out of the peace
of misdirected alertness
a leopard frog.

Heron,
for whom Frog is a bringer of peace,
will bring its own peace one day
to the obsidian maw

that swallows you and me
and Heron and all
into the peace of molecular
reincarnation.

Heron, Frog, You, I—
even the surface
of the pacific lake

leave no ripple
that will refuse the jaws of Peace.

Richard Fenton Sederstrom was raised and lives in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and the North Woods of Minnesota. Sederstrom is the author of eight books of poetry, his latest book, The Dun Book, published by Jackpine Writers' Bloc, was released last fall. Read other articles by Richard Fenton.