By: Brian Michael Barbeito

the rains had arrived when there was supposed to be snow, and the fields became beige and flaxen again, and the world was strange and stayed that way. it was as if it had longed to be strange and present that part of its personality that nobody cared about. and now that it had gotten the chance, it wasn’t going to give it up. for many days and nights the precipitation continued. an old solitary hawk that lived somewhere near or perhaps on the top of the movie-house came down and alighted atop a No Trespassing sign. a dirty sad area, who would want to trespass there anyhow? I watched the beautiful hawk as it looked for something, here and there a bit like you look for where you put your keys down right?- found it, jumped down, seeming to let itself fall down moreso than jump, having just jumped into the air I felt, retrieved the thing, and left. later I had seen a few souls, two in person and two in vision, that presented well enough, but which I felt were possessed. I have a soft spot for the aged, the idea of the old man w/his sweater and perhaps book or cane even, hard fought sagacity as it were…but not these ones. whatever had taken up residence in them, if I was right, (you always have to leave room for the idea of being wrong), had really done a number on their souls. I was sad and always a bit startled at this. let them be for it was not my responsibility and besides,- these people wouldn’t only not change, but would defend their ideas to the end. pride. arrogance. one day that end would come, but that was up to the Whole, the Universe, God, whatever nomenclature or moniker one chose or that was in fashion. the rain was rain for the high temperature. if you went near a window or outside it actually felt warm and sometimes hot. back by the way of the hawk again, I glanced to see if my old friend who was not my real friend was around. nothing though. no hawk today. sometimes there is nothing but the rain. 

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Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. Prose poem and landscape photo book, Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through, is forthcoming from Dark Winter Literary Press, summer 2024.