Eulogy for John Proctor

Clouds of dust litter the desert plain.
A body swings, and a fire slain
by the wind that caresses his open back,
by the water-plague of the yellow atmosphere.

The dangling meat machine,
now broken on display,
in his final moments felt the cold embrace
of treeish skin, just beneath his face.

When spring has come and sheep do graze
and earth with its more gentle phase
invites its children to lie upon
its green touch-shimmer surface.

Even then when my feet do tread upon remains
shall I remember his bruised body,
and a rope blood-stained.