High above the ultra-white plateau
a vultures wheels in an amino helix
above a dead horse. Branded upon its left flank is the word
“Mulatto”.
In the forest far below
an ilex rattles for the dead.
The river, pregnant with shrapnel
sulks and stagnates, her belly full of lead.
The plains are cratered as the Moon
the purple heather soothes the raw stone wound
and whispers that the fighting will be over
very soon, and all the scars will heal.
Their fires have turned our bones to meal.

The mountain gods are sighing now
and dying now, the endless sky their tomb.
Rainclouds loom, seething with disdain
and seek to quench the hungry yellow grass.
Rain lashes through the mountain pass.

Rainwater sifts into the soil
and we do not forget.
Blood chapel-sacred, black as oil
and we do not forget.
Shrapnel is sown like seeds into the spoil
and we do not forget.