Bruce Bond

When a bullet strikes the bell in its path
a bullet of sound flies out the other side,

and the widow with her broom in the distance
looks up and pauses, pierced, and in the wind

that follows, leaves scatter from steps below.  
When a bullet strikes, the bell in its path

strikes a name from the ledger of the wind.
The leaves and the broom that gathers them,

they make one sound now. As those in black  
make one darkness down the chapel steps.

The widow's silence as she listens is a hole,
no larger than a sun. And as the sun falls in,

the crows, the trees, they are one crow now.
And turn like leaves to music as she turns away.