Pentecost
I watched a hen the other day
pursue a barn-owl twice her size
across the yard.
Her flaps and squawks
seemed laughably inept
yet kept that predator from eating more
than half of her new chicks.

She made me think of dark-eyed children
throwing stones at tanks and
Rosa Parks defiant on a bus and
Gandhi bending low
making salt.

Where does such fire come from
that can make a little one stand tall
or turn to flesh a heart of stone?

I saw it fall in tongues of flame
one day on ordinary folk
and knew it would in time
all things malevolent consume.

Beatrice Brennan rscj
province of the United States