November hymnal (29)

The wind blows the massacre over mountains
And the mountains blunted by a billion years

Still shudder and a twist of vultures descends
Through the leftover chasm of last breaths

As if it would corkscrew through the hotel parking lot
The crust of asphalt crumbling like a cork

Down the red earth to the buried creek
But they settle on a pine and resume waiting

For something new to die. Hundreds of pine needles
Drift down like hairs uncounted by God.