Vespers

A linnet pulls a tuft of cowhair

snarled on barbed wire.

The threads of hair shine red-gold

in her beak.  She flies into last light.

At the horizon earth & sky

reach a truce.  The sun just down,

barn swallows tumble in the afterglow

above the slow turning windmill.

The hill darkens,

a saddle rubbed with oil,

not yet the complete black of Nevada night.

There’s the soft whickering of a horse,

the flames of a hundred Asian poppies nodding red,

then the descending quiet.

Gary Short