Broken Vow - A poem

Broken Vow

A hand swept across the soil, just fast enough
to snap the tender seedling from its base.

Tears sliding, making their way toward the ground
too late to save the severed, the sound

of a car backfiring off in the distance, a vow
flapping its wings, lifting into the crowded

sky, joining the crows circling, squawking,
never able to quite come to a rest, block

the urge to have it all alone, or even admit
error after. What began as a single errant word

gave birth to others until the field was covered
with sowthistle, virginia waterleaf, and mounds of clover

untended, and gone to seed, so that the murder of one
among the many might seem unimportant,

but it’s that one, the one that now is spinning
in the wind, never to be rooted again

the way it was, it is that one which is calling out,
demanding for a set of eyes open enough

to toss aside old allegiances, make way
for a world too fertile to ever be kept down.