The Doubling Sun 

Knots of weeds and wildflowers overgrow

the path to the old bench: knife scars.

Initials dotted with bird shit.

Today the ceasefire ended.

Bombs fell on schools and hospitals

where the attacker says the enemy hides

command centers that must be destroyed.

The river’s green-black gloss.

Sun slants its flare, flashes onto trees,

doubles its reflection, blinding me.

For a moment my face lifts to the sky 

bearing down. If I cannot love my brother

whom I have seen, how can I love God whom I 

have not seen? Quickly I turn away. 

My eyes burn. Behind them, sun repeats 

on eyelids, retina, optic nerve.

Old branches dancing, the riverbank shimmering

with gold, shaking the leaves.

Pockets of air vibrate without wind, shaking me.

Shifting reflections fracture into turbulence

flowing far away to the rubble, the buried, the dead,

the children, the wounded, the fleeing, the taken,

shaking every stripped-open heart, the pulsing

downstream, the cross-stream ripple, the light

refracted in this instant, as if the river upended

and we were all under water.

Heather H. Thomas

12.9.2024