In the precise shadow
Of emerging day
The Earth in labor lay
And along each vein surged the pain
That shuddered the rock away.

The sun rose.
Into the rays of the crown
A running man came in fright.
The strewn stone lay like mangled bones,
The wounded flesh was lathed by the long light.

The man stopped
On the torn lip,
Saw the white linen writhe:
The coils of the winding sheet unwound
And as a bandage binds the eternal wound.