Sing-call the daylight thrush, jay, warbler, wren;
not knowing what a graveyard is.
The sculpted dove atop the hand-hewn stone
cooes silent in its bliss like a written word,
its veins of marble brought to sight by man,
in times to come fine powder, never bone.

Roaming a spot adjacent to the grave,
a robin strikes and greedily goobles down
a naked worm God made, that he heard.

The worm had not yet sensed the sweet decay
beneath the always silent, sullen ground.
The rot that cedar boards protected there
was meant to be encased without a sound,
quiet as the folly above it, the stone bird.