Sniper is a first place prize winner that I wrote a few years ago and published in my third collection of poetry, In the Cat's Eye in 2009. 

Is it about the shooter or the victim?

Or is it about a world where life and death blend so seamlessly that the clockwork silver of the universe beckons us slowly into the darkness, picking us off one by one, even as we huddle in the Earth's gentle shadows.

You'll have to decide about this one yourself.

Sniper

 

I lay among silver daffodils

Watching the Bear mark time

On the luminous dials spinning above.

I wondered what colors would emerge

In a world without light.

A breeze picked its way through the field,

Found me tucked in the shadows,

And began a gentle massage.

Crickets ticked away the minutes,

Moving to the Earth’s beat.

I knew the sun would be too slow

To paint the daffodils yellow,

So I closed my eyes and painted them

Red.