Gray hide emerges from gray mud,
your hair rusting at the shoulders
beneath the pruned vineyard rows
where old clusters turn to raisins.
The wicks of your ears piercing
the fog for a rabbit’s death squeal
tuned exactly like our corroding
chains reeling repetitiously.
The reward of civilization
is suffering, labored order
pray for our squandered abuse
yours is unconscious grace.
No mechanism to your vanishing
like wisdom bled from an old mind
like water swallowing your tracks
you have made us your wilderness.