like tattered Spanish Moss on ancient, gnarled oak trees
and spiderwebs on decaying, rotting things
death blows coldly with the plastic trash rolling through
empty alleyways like tumbleweeds
but on this day the birdsong of dawn
seems more real
than the abandonment of night
and the news of life echoes a hope
that the hegemony of loss is cracking
under the soft caress of love
it is here in the surprise of blue small flowers
impossibly splitting the weight of oppressive concrete
resurrection in the cracks
blooming underneath it all
this is the way of the Gospel
life, out of death