Nightfall. The Great Horned,
from his pulpit in the black spruce,
preaches his best sermon,
the one in which the mice
shall inherit the earth—
the ones struck blind
by the early morning light,
and the loaves and fishes
and whatever scraps remain,
are strewn upon the bare ground
for the scarecrows. “My heart,”
he tells them, “is a red turbine,
red as the armies of the east and
to those who have accepted sleet
as their savior, you whose cries
are heard among the bare trees
whose shadows on the snow
have left the faithful shaken
with fear, I tell you this:
you shall see the sky
charged again with the dark
symphonic clouds that once
delivered so much heavy rain
to Birnam Wood cloaking
our numbers as we drew blood
from the darkness, and broke the vast
silence of the Almighty.
Welcome to the night shift.”