Khirigsuur

Every body buried here,
Except maybe the horses,
Knew shame and disappointment,
Knew what it was to approach
The living and the lifeless
Cosmos as a supplicant.
Probably the horses, too.

The Griffins and stags, antlers
Flowing back impossibly
Like waves, like curled locks of hair,
Flew from imagination
Into three or four thousand
Years of future, immortal
For never having lived, lied.

Sometimes there are no bodies,
No drugged, strangled concubines,
No murdered charioteers,
No horse sacrifice, no king.
Sometimes, below the deer stone,
There's nothing but more symbols
Created to lie alone.