El Prado Triste

Here, find me in my ruin
where I lay beneath the frost,
as sheep nuzzle at my sides
and graze on Spanish moss.

His hawk eyes saw into me;
tore a hole within my heart -
now here, love, in the aftermath,
I wonder, is at last a losing art?

The morning dew hangs limply
on gnarled bark of birches,
and each time a droplet falls,
the hollow in me lurches.

A rising sun like an apple slice
cuts into the shadowed land -
at last I find that though I try,
I have not the will to stand.