An Evil Wind Poem by Barry Middleton

August is a hot and glowing fever.
Dust devils rise on fallow fields.
No rain is in that furnace wind.
A scorching wave crosses the delta.

A change is in the restless air.
Demons ride above the fields.
A curse, a tragedy, and death
pursue the childhood guardians.

Evil lingers beyond the river,
hidden in the cypress domes.
A swamp witch stirs an evil brew.
Predators sharpen vicious claws.

The benign woods of the sacred hills,
are a citadel of Eden's hope,
a primal home for apple and snake.
Innocence seeks a shady glen.

Human evil and the wildcat
are confined to delta wilderness
beyond the dark river of death.
They cannot touch my sanctuary.

I am nine, and he is fourteen.
I hear the adults speak of murder.
Evil has risen on the August wind,
a little closer than the day before.

~~~~~
Recalling the death of Emmett Till, August 28th,1955.