Before Dawn Sings

Before Dawn Sings

By Red Dog

For Leonard Peltier down 40 years In America’s Gulags.

I hear night sounds
Of prison cells slamming
Like rackety clatter
When storm windows close
Shutting out tempests
And tomorrows alike
In the stillness that follows
Before thunder strikes.

Strapped on a bed
in the shape of a tomb
Locked in a casket
When cell doors slam tight
In sacred darkness
With two broken wings
The same holy pain
Comes late in the night.

Somewhere afar
in forests still free
A restive bird spirit
Asks can you still fly?
I can’t soar with the wind
Nor sail on the sea
My dream wings were broken
When I fell from the sky.

A solemn voice whispers
From my captive hawk’s soul
Muffled by moltings
Beneath broken wings
As echoes of closings
And shutterings toll
In some distant belfry
Before the dawn sings.

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