On a bicycle trip through the Cascades
I spotted an osprey gliding over a stream.
It snagged a rainbow trout
and ate it on a deadwood branch.
I never cottoned to the idea
of Original Sin.
My sins I learned by observation
and repeated on my weak-willed days.
The farm failing to harvest black ink
was a common enough experience.
When it does. Hallelujah! Jubilee!
The accounts float for another nine years.
I awoke to a fly’s buzz
and the twenty-sixth sunrise in the wilderness.
The fly landed on my chest, but flew away.
I was not as dead as we smelled.
Visiting home for the holidays
I took my poetry into my father’s workshop.
I tinkered with the lines
using a ball peen hammer and belt sander.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 