Two alabaster hands close one book
as a dying animal drags itself out of another.
The gesture of the hands is a simple benediction
that means grateful to learn language and sing.
The animal is the awareness of dust and decay.
Modern parables composed in half-light
are always terrifying. A popular one tells
of a retired scholar's first play's first performance
cut short by a powerful earthquake.
Another relates the tragedy of a choir
that escapes from a boarding school, only to be
slaughtered by a larger choir that has escaped
from a more prestigious boarding school.
How many innocent bodies have climbed out
on the limb of romance, over freedom's abyss,
only to have it break? The number must
approach a hunter's ideal. As the sun devotes
itself to uncertain lives, morning will paint
yonder hills the colors of a convalescing earth.