We mourned you Before you were born Shed tears for all you'd never know The quiet bite of fresh snow The cry forlorn Of insects and sparrows Wind in the trees, harvesting Drained leaves, splendor-worn Or scattering dew, in the dregs of spring An August sun that hangs warm And nurtures the earth's largesse Not some fatal furnace Suspended in darkness For these, we mourned You inherit the dust, sons and daughters Perfect silence, endless summer And you'll live, live, live Fierce and hardened By the end, forever nigh You'll scavenge fat From the land's shriveled carcass But never thrive, never forgive Us, who drank the world dry And thirsting still, poured you in Whose same spasms blind Bind you by the brainstem And so you'll strive Through the heat and the stillness With a strength we could not teach For it was nature's to give You inherit the dust, sons and daughters Perfect silence, endless summer