Monday, October 15, 2012

Autumn Melancholy

And now I have to set my own heart free.
The leaves will come down in the evening rain,
The droplet that is whole must fall to earth,
The one must separate to join the sea.

You met me at the tunnel light of death
And pulled me back to see the first of life.
I had no eyes that were not made of yours
And all I touched was warmth upon your skin.

I reached the diamond stars laid at your side,
We walked antiquity with hands entwined,
There wasn't any tavern with its laughter left uncaptured,
No philosophy above which we didn't rise.

And now the fickle sunlight says its time to move along
As if the soul was born to jettison.
I hear the ghosts already turning mulch
Of everything I saw and knew and loved.

The wind it has no answers, when it beckons, you must go
Like the hard and forlorn leaf across the road
Without a home or boundary now, no proof it's not alone,
It pushes down the brown and brittle meadow.

The grace that gave us purpose for our lives,
The dumb, miraculous luck that found us one
Just disappears to structures made of bone,
The sweet pretense that it will linger on.

The foliage like ashes from the coals
That can't remember what it was to burn
Is there to make believe it never happened,
A lesson someday, somehow, I will learn.