Omen

by Nancy Mill

I have a timid dog
afraid of a plastic bag.
The dog is small and the bag seems huge
as it fills with air and grows
into a giant threatening thing with ears.
I want to laugh but he trembles so
as it floats up in shimmering splendor
makes no sound, just swoops around
spooks,
a shifting film of horror.
I see it through his eyes.
There’s another one high up in a tree
flapping its wrinkled onion skin.
They are everywhere.
Maybe the dog is right.

Nancy Mills is a retired Episcopal priest and painter who writes poetry to express things beyond words. Her poems are not so much sermons as brief notes taken along the way to paradise.

About Omen—The poem is meant to be both a fun and serious commentary on the ecological brink. The dog’s name is Rufus. He walked up into our yard hungry and lost. Now eight years later I’m convinced he may have more sense than any of us.

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