Descending onto Graves

Remembering the fall of sparrows
that hit the ground with breasts red --
Is that the purpose of these markers?
To know the places the unknowable have fallen?

They hit the ground with breasts red
and their breathing faded out,
to know the places where the unknowable have fallen
at the end of some great clatter of antlers,

and their breathing faded out.
There are some we remember -- and more we forget
at the end of a great clatter of antlers
that crashes with the crack of a branch breaking.

There are some we remember -- and more we forget.
What of the pine with the rough brown bark
that crashes with the crack of the branch breaking?
Who can count them all when rot's set in?

What of that pine with the rough brown bark?
Do old ghosts need flowers to soothe --
but who can count them all when rot's set in?
Let the sky grow dark with the fall of flowers!

Do old ghosts need flowers to soothe?
Is that the purpose of these markers?
Let the sky grow dark with the fall of flowers
Remembering the fall of sparrows.