Urnal lines

By Nirina Mignon

Err dolefully, dappling thy path

With rues o’ ruin, wicks and chaff

Behind ears by lies and harvest disabused,

Being the ignorance of men: a swallow loosed

From a loom’s knots and rites now rote;

With sequela in censers, mute to the captive note

Of sap and hair in nightly holocaust,

The petaled pupa on taut yew budding

To shed; numbing to cause; gnawing to fast;

That we may drink again from the moon,

Slaked by murder. Unsexed and curled,

He is as the summer is hewn.