A Dirty Hymn

"Flowers will caper today," I hear one god after another say,

dancing over the ashes,

& stone-heavy;

and an awe-struck sky, way up there,

scalloped sides heaving,

will always tear its heart wide open to let the rain-heavy winds

come fumbling after.

For somewhere between the dance and the open hillside graves,

—and forget the

stupid Dieu mon chevalier crap!—

is the hymn,

and never called by me the Writ of the 'holy mud' for nothing, either,

a hymn of baby sages,

and always culled from the prickliest shrubbery, always worm-decked and greedily dry,

a hymn to its rotting lord.