They have such character—they are unlike
the mounds of raw materials you find

in quarries, construction sites—for the timberstacks
were once alive.

Today they mount each other’s pyres; tonight
their silhouettes

blazing through dusk…
Their rough-hewn pyramids

shoulder the glyphs with which they speak to me—
though what is it they say?

Of all the fates they couldn’t understand,
in this at least they find

themselves so closely packed,
more closely packed than in the deepest jungle;

and they need only whisper
to each other.

But what is it they say?