After Marosa di Giorgio

A ridge of pines overlooked the popcorned heads of bright green deciduous.
The pines were a gathering of mourners all in black; they wept flakes of birds, buntings plummeting like pearls.
In their forest, I hit rocks against rock, until I drilled a hole big enough to climb into.
Jewel-backed bugs formed orderly lines into earth burrows.
We awaited the vulture’s violet shadow.
When it came, the stream unstuck itself from the ground and wrapped around the throats of deer; then buntings descended, the tulip tree’s blossoms descended, the sparrows descended.
We lay where the river no longer ran, head to foot, shoulder to wing.
We paved the ground for the vulture who rode atop a black horse, with death in its mouth.