Shades of Gray
By Gary Lechliter

To the men who shot the whooping cranes …

Five-hundred thousand
sand hill cranes that
wade unrolling shores
cannot now and will never
stand regaled in white
with black-tipped wings.

An accident your plea …
Shades of gray blinded
by need to blast rare birds
rising in that instant
when trigger-fingers
twitch and barrels roar.

Mistaken identity’s claim
of shame, any real hunter
knows the target and the
reason to kill, shrouded
as it is in right-or-wrong;
the old morality play.

Blinded by testosterone,
the retinas blend from
white to gray. In this
there is no living color,
only the ghostly shades
of passenger pigeons.

— Gary Lechliter is a Lawrence poet. Poet’s Showcase features work by area poets. Submit your poetry via e-mail with a subject line of Poet’s Showcase to mpaget@ljworld.com or send typewritten (not handwritten) submissions to Mindie Paget, 645 N.H., Lawrence 66044, attn: Poet’s Showcase. Teen writers should submit their work to the 18 & Under page at teens@ljworld.com.