Ruminations surrounding the killing of a lion named Cecil of the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe illegally shot to death by Walter James Palmer, an American dentist, on 1 July 2015.

Is that what people who have money do
For recreation—kill things? If so I've
Good reason to be happy to eschew
Such wealth: to honor life and what's alive.

"It's what I like to do," so quoth the hunter,
"But I don't talk about it, realizing
The matter so divisive—to be blunter
Might subject me to conscience-scrutinizing.

"Ergo I say, 'I took' the animal,
Instead of 'foully slew' him—with hired hands
Tricking him from protected lairs withal,
Tormenting him within his native lands.

"America my home, employment dental,
Africa place to play—and kill the gentle."

When Law Enforcement stoops to fury
And finds too late that crime don't pay,
What charm can public favor curry,
What art make stigma go away?

The only act to bring atonement,
To breach high dudgeon's chasmic gulf,
To make display of sin's disownment
Is—each offender hang himself.

Some of my friends hate the ‘poetic style’ replete with its archaisms and contortions—but I know of no other way to respond to such happenings.

Heavenly Father, as I older grow
The sights and sounds of human treachery
Weigh heavily upon me—though I know
Escape from them awaits the death of me.

Today I see, cut down within her prime,
A lovely child, one hunted like a fox
By law’s enforcers in a wanton crime
Though she had done no wrong—a paradox.

Lord, how such huntsmen came to be, so hateful
Deriding innocence with scorn and anger,
I know not; but for her the matter fateful
As though malice had taken form to hang her.

The lynchings of the past, remain in force,
The ghosts which walk amongst us are not dead,
And human perturbations run their course
In spite of cries for mercy, justice pled.

A lovely child, thou takest to thy breast
For to revivify, engorge the good,
But we remain, to face another test
Mechanisms whereof scarce understood.

I beg thee, insofar that I may plead
For retribution, having not the strength
To ask for mercy in this hour of need,
Yet let a turning come—soon or at length.

How to retrieve a soul that has been cast
Unto eternity, this mortal coil
Evacuated—let us learn at last
If there be recompense to come with toil.

If any did deserve safekeeping, Lord,
Then it was Sandra Bland—malicious hands
Prevented heart’s desire, but spirit soared
Whither she must now sing with heavenly bands.