Forgiveness, second verse

                "Nevertheless man, though in honor, does not remain;
                He is like the beasts that perish . . ." –Ps. 49:12

Another fall, another shift
of cloud. One hawk, two

hawks sift the patient or impatient
grace of crows:

who owns the skyward lamppost, who has
air rights to overfly the trees.

Down the road, a stone's throw
from their motley argument, the asphalt

where death's gray squirrel body
lapsed from bloodied substance

to the white signature of
nothingness

a year, two years ago

this day records in dust
in the hollowed crucible

where mortality erased itself
a newborn chuff of grass.