Fitting that vegetation has overgrown
the bas-reliefs and broken them

the long-cloyed response. . .
sisters dark and fair

form the vine: a pendulous whisper

Fitting that the golden one
with sun arching southward
cannot speak

or you, your ashen hair
do you hear avian dialects
from the dark womb

of mahogany felled
or the burning swaths
where you were shorn
and marched

she poured upon you sweet oil
the fair; laid you in linen

a modicum of scent the sum
of dun of ash