The mourners move through summer frost
to disposition of bones and flesh;
rites exhume the codifier’s ghost,
leave Jenghiz’ body, earth-oppressed.
Milestone with mile enmeshed
thunder omens Kerulen under dust.
Its waters by a harsh sky lashed,
the river contains a horseman’s chaos.
In hunger and silence are severed the rites,
the epicenter moves beyond restraint,
nomadic in the city’s inhospitable light.
In the desert laws are made.
Carelessly, God speaks; Moses survives
Apollonius’ pantheistic legerdemain.