From
olive to oak-leaf, vineyards to black firs,
the days
darkened in a colder wood,
assuming
their shadows like a winter’s sun
over
Kalkriese hill: the master of horse
subtracted a hand on the heather field,
the
ingenieur in his broad hat
less an
eye for the host of ravens,
a rage
of thunder where the sky-father
lightened, the fenborn spinning of love.
The moon
and sun that fingered over
bridle
gear and slingshot, sandal studs
and
lance heads, never slowed
for the
wolves coursing at their heels.
Bogland
numina, carts and charioteers,
who left
a name from the laurel-hung south
among
this tribal company? The old reaper
rounding
his sheaves, they recognized him
without
translation, by any name
as
blood-kenned and darkly kinned
as wind
and axes, the waiting leap of fire,
the
silver mask left rotting in the peat,
devouring seed, stars, children, the world,
in any
age to smile and cut us down.
