The raven bled
black
upon cerulean sky--
circling, crying, quoting
to we mere mortals scattered below,
who weaved a barbed-wire way betwixt
securely tamped locust posts and across
rocky river ground.
the Angus cattle flooded
black
upon winter riverside pasture--
lowing, sparring, churning
their hallowed ground
to cold-molten mud,
and we mere mortals 
bowed
our unworthy heads in futile epiphany:
when we are gone, lowered
and churned into
our hallowed earth’s brown blood,
the raven will circle, cry, declare
“I am the master of these fields;
I am the keeper of these bones"