Walking on Roses 

(A Saturn/Mercury retrograde

On a powder-blue expanse, two Hawks free-wheel across the sky riding the warm northern winds.

The sun has baked the earth porous.

Rose thorns cut into my feet as I walk their thorny path, punctured and bleeding, among the brittle brown leaves.

Later, in the darkness of the waning moon, armed police storm across the land to subdue a man who had lost everything and turned to his gun. The following day, the mountains were ablaze with fire.

HB 1998