About the Author Thomas D. Jones is the author of Genealogy X, his first book of poetry, published by The Poets Press out of Providence, RI. His poetry has also been published in numerous magazines throughout the country. Originally from northern New Jersey, he has a BA in English from Seton Hall University and an MA in Publishing Studies from New York University. After twelve years in the publishing field, he decided to change his career and become an adult educator, teaching composition and ESL at colleges in the New York/New Jersey area. Since moving to Rhode Island in 2001, he has done freelance publishing and now teaches ESL and computers at adult education centers. He is also the publisher and Poetry Editor of Wings Online Magazine, www.geocities.com/wingsmag2002/ in existence (but not on-line) since 1991. This is his first poetry in Nuvein.

In the end there'll be nothing but wind through the trees, after the rain of terror pours forth foul pestilence from the seeded clouds.



We would sour as the great eagle grasping with mighty talons when we should practice caution as the owl chasing prey in the night.



We would bound as boldly as the mountain goat through the dense forest when we should prick our ears as the deer drinking at the stream.



We would raise our paw as angry and stubborn as the grizzly when we should slide with stealth and cunning as the snake across water.



We talk as if the world were ours, but alas we can only know what our instruments and the limits of our unfathomed brains will let us: the great beyond is left to our imagining.



Remember that the humpback whale has a brain five times the size of ours and that its music stretches for thousands of miles to its loved ones: we would do well to decipher the wisdom in the ultra-sound.



It is for the sake of this unknown and our own DNA that we should seek to understand our enemies and not revert to hasty maneuvers.

For otherwise we are like children unschooled who sally forth into the night without the least hesitation: funny how our brethren animals know the secret of sudden stillness.



We are great and we are base, and we need greatness born in our chests when pain and disappointment would make us otherwise seek retribution.



We would be as strong as our cousin ape and ignore all counsel and an inner voice that cries Stop!



And yet there persists in the human brain the capacity to strike when striking would prove regrettable: sometimes we must hold to principles even if accused of cowardice.



Would you like the rain to fall in putrid plumes and brush the flesh and bones off bodies like snow because a fanatical lunatic pressed the button and released a plague of revenge?



Like all things, this too shall come to pass only if we lose the capacity to slow down and wait, only if we forget that history is every breathing moment.



I look out the window and think I can see in the end thereâll be nothing but wind through the trees, then suddenly the trees will have vanished like the snap of a twig or a finger, and we shall have departed with them in fire and dust·