A shadow behind the sun

— the withering —

Shrivelled, exposed, cold,
warps and wefts waste us away
the body afflicted with decay
O!, I say, the hey-ho way of the live-long-day.

Whatever has lived will wither, languish, and decay.
Time pines away the live-long day
aghast at a quagmire of guilt, regret
spilt water, wine? I forget.

No transubstantiation this,
no drift into immortal bliss:
this work of resistance is
an inception into art
of all the heart-wrung soul that is left in me.

A lamenting for
what?
the passing of the light?

Maybe a winter tree stripped,
bent, gnarled, entwined in the winds of time.
the wind a modulation of voice, a volte-face
a variation in rhyme. Surely, no man
has such bad intent as to awaken from sleep
those legions of demons that laugh as we weep?

Stripped down, dying back to the root,
we leave a shadow behind the sun.
a withering ensues
from…