Burning the Plough

A good life we had despite the obstinate soil;
each season our twelve oxen pulled through air
as hot as a star and twice as bright.

Why did you leave the celebration of being young?
I will never understand why you followed
a sun-maddened prophet, with no thought for us
and the long days ahead when we should drink together.

You burned the plough to cook the flesh
of the great oxen and that was tough
to eat, sickened, the remains of our future.

I may never understand. You sucumbed
to the weight of his mantle, murdered your own future
but my share also spilled into the furrows
where something like a death hung in the air
and insects buzzed above charred bones.