Prodigal
by Tim Haut

A blackbird keeps watch
From the top of a tall cedar,
His feathers glossy
In the early spring sun.
A dusty road
Spills from around a bluff,
Which casts a long shadow
Across the greening fields.
There he comes,
This lean, broken boy
Who has spit in the eye
of the world,
who has swaggered as far
from the farm in the boondocks
as his old man’s money could take him,
who has danced with the devil
till he was nearly dead.
He is defeated, bent, hungry, lost,
and there is only one road left to try:
Home.
He is afraid 
that he has burned all his bridges.
He has nothing good 
to show for these months away.
He is prepared for a locked door,
a dead end.
And then he stops in his tracks
at a ruckus up ahead,
stops to grasp this miracle of a thing.
It's the old man himself, 
racing through the dusty sunlight,
arms wide, crazy with love.
Tears stream down his wrinkled face
in pure, plain joy.
"My son," he blubbers
into the boys tangled hair.
Even the blackbird knows
that this is heaven,
or as close as it gets around here.
He fluffs his warm feathers.
sings, sings.

(Comments to Tim at timothyhaut@yahoo.com.)