Did the birds
cease their song
when darkness
came and you died
and the land recoiled
into darkness?
Did the trees
wear their leaves
now slack and grey
on branches
clutching heaven
in the collapse of grief?
Did lily and sparrow
now drop from the sky
in sudden midday black
as the dead roamed
and a veil was torn
never to be mended?
Did the farmer
outside Jerusalem
now push one last seed
into the earth
before shadows came
and silence swept across the land?