When the spring sun finds the village now it is empty

but from the beginning this was the afterlife

it was not so apparent a generation gone

these were still roofs under which the names were born

that came home winter evenings before all the wars to sleep

through freezing nights when the dogs curled low in the cow barns

and sheep nudged their rank clouds in the dark as one

now only wagons sleep there and stalled plows

and machine skeletons rusting around stopped notes

of far-off bells in a cold longer than winter’s

they will not be wanted again nor wake into any life

when the recesses from a better world begin

the year goes on turning and the barns remain without breath

and now after sundown a city bulb keeps an eye on the village

until past midnight but the owls sweep by the low eaves

and over black gardens in the light of finished stars