Autumn Sacrament

A circle of black buzzards
in a yellow roadside field,
a coven speaking no words
round a rabbit that was killed
by the combine’s heedless path
when the farmer reaped his corn;
behold the bleak aftermath:
a stark contrast in the morn.
Black-winged priests bow wrinkled heads
in a sallow field of waste,
the leaves fall—browns, silvers, reds;
death-borne colors that they taste
in the sacrament enjoined
in this season hued with death,
in the innocence purloined,
and the wind’s husk-rustling breath.

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