The river ran fast and full, 
surging, eddying, swirling 
but channeled, compelled, choiceless. 
Above it a hawk circled. 
Somewhere, he thought, a mouse
trembles beneath a taloned shadow. 
Somewhere, necessity drives the lion to kill. 
Somewhere, survival makes the fleet deer leap.
And I must return to the place of my birth. 

That first occasion. 
The wave of fear that swept over him, 
unnerving him when he saw 
the mustachioed general standing beside 
the cold eyed, unsmiling cleric. 
That instant flashback. 
He saw again his professor marched 
from the hospital and summarily executed 
for refusing to cut off the ears of prisoners. 
He sees again the long lines of amputees, 
a tidal flow of faces filled desolation and hope. 
They have come to him as their miracle worker. 
He has a vision of the marketplace,   
the smoke, stench, blood, litter, 
groans, screaming and death.

Is everything the blindness of chance,
random, time and circumstance converging 
to deal out fate or fortune?
These young people walked innocently along 
at the precise moment when a car 
packed with death exploded 
and took their legs or their life.

He looked down into the flooding river.
Little islands of logs, branches and refuse 
were caught in irresistible surge. 
 
The storm must break. 
The hawk must circle and stoop, 
The lion will lie waiting downwind, 
and I will return to my birthplace, 
not because I am caught in currents 
more powerful than my will 
but because I chose to return. 
That is my power and my privilege. 
Others more noble have gone before. 
Many there are who are still to follow.