We are pleased to announce a tie for Barista Favorite from April 2’s Promote Yourself Monday at Go Dog Go Cafe. Our first Barista Favorite is Eric Syrdal’s poem Requiem of a Red Hood….

You can read more of Erics’s writing at My Sword and Shield….

this swatch I hold
this bit of fabric
the color of love and sacrifice
and the testament to the struggle of two souls
in time’s bitter unraveling
she and I were bound
like the threads here
in the construction of this cloth
I, the warp
She, the weft
neither could exist without the other
neither filament could lend its strength
to this tapestry
without the presence of its kindred fiber
yet when I stand here
in the silent reverence of this wood
and listen to the far off songs
of warbler and wood thrush
this singular moment does not exist just for me
though she no longer walks the wooded trail
beside me
I can feel her spirit here
close my eyes
and my ears can hear her breathing
her scent penetrates my canid nose
her heartbeat still pulses on my tongue
as her life runs
hot and wet down my throat
but no amount of baying
at that bright circle in the night sky
can express the pain in my soul
at her loss
the touch of her hand
upon my neck
stolen by the course of my actions
brought to a lonely ending
by my savage nature
and I will live
forever a prisoner of these woods
a verdant penitentiary
a scrap of cloth
my warden