Earthen Circle  

1965 Knowing nothing 
I named the place the end of the world.  

Everything colorless: grass, trees
broken footbridge, flowing stream
limestone buildings 
In that fluid, perfect light in which artists paint
not seeing
I sat in the barren scatter of displaced stones.  

2017
Knowing something
remembering

I hear the hungry ghosts speak,
“Where are our graves?
The bones here are not ours.”  
The cuckoo has breached their earthworks,
stripped them of their flesh and meaning,
laid in their nest spoiled eggs and monsters.