The ululations
come from beyond
the shadows of the rocks

across the banks
into the caverns of gazelle.

Here in the repeated
morning
a partitioner’s cry

carried by the urgent swell,
and the augural message
imbedded in the dust of the sky.

Tell us who has come
and who has gone.

We, who come upon grief
like the hooves of a beast
cresting a hill

wild and in circumstantial
control.

The billows from the bowl
of the censer

reveal the text
on the temple wall

moving in two directions.

We read according
to the way the bird faces

its long beak
our direction home.