É.G.N. LAFLEUR

Caedmon's Hymn

Singing surprised in the dark:
virtuoso noun declensions in a language untranslatable,
lost,
the language of orcas singing
in kelp forests, of mosses,
of the winter saints:
their patronages hard, bloody.
Singing surprised in the dark:
grass on a high-wind hill,
lean-tos,
wooden shelters of the unhoused,
the killing cold.