Cento: So You Were Spared

So you were spared.
You knew no field, but drifted
toward one. As pigeons to home, they
sough and came to a kind of resting
upon your deep/your fair/your not-
to-be-understood-in-this-our-life-
time breast. They bent over in grief,
mourning their lost brilliant crowns that
they can only watch, not reach as,
beneath them, leaves scattered down:
singly, in fistfuls. Leaves. Light.
The trees filling, emptying. The bodies
that, wrapped and wrapped, lay
sprawled above the steam as it left
the vents of my city. Here's a coyote.
Alas, alas, all is undone, you cry, when he
takes it by the neck, where the head should
be, repositioning the body so the markings
at the wings face up. Like memory, the cry
changes nothing really, any more than trust
changes: Trust me, the way one animal trusts
another.


Notes:

From From the Devotions, and Riding Westward


Alba: After: Line 1
The Blue Castrato: Line 2-7
Alba: Failure: Line 7-10
The Cure: Line 10-11
Truce: Line 11-12
Alba: Failure: Line 12-15
Riding Westward: Line 15
Hunters: Line 16
The Way Back: Line 16-19
Radiance versus Ordinary Light: Line 20
Torn Sash: Line 19
My line: Line 20
Closer Your Eyes: Line 21-22