Little finger of fiery green, it 
flickers over stone. Waits 
in a weed's shadow. 
Flashes emerald — 
is gone. 

Here once horror poured so hot, heavy, thick, 
everyone was dead before he was sick. 
Now here is no heat but the sun's 
on old stone treads; 
no motion but that rippling inch of whip: 
yours, you little live jewel, who slipped away 
into silence. Yet stay on to haunt memory, 
like those dead.