Swirling, returning through the pines’ screen,
the sounds were faint but they kept coming
until the ping of battleaxes and men’s screams
covered, then became, the silence.
Still rubbing sleep away, I stumbled
out onto the winding gabled roof
of my father’s house…

as when a wheat field
explodes in wind-tugged flames, or a freshet,
wedged among low mountain ledges,
building up speed, finally lands
and in an instant the meadow vanishes,
crops are crushed, a whole forest,
uprooted, starts wobbling off—

while the shepherd stands, frozen, picking
sound from sound on a distant rock.