This is the time of our turning
like the red leaves you see
burning in Autumn.
O god, my grief is a child
I hold as a thief
might hold his last night
of freedom…
desperate to my bones,
indelicate as tombstones
standing in the rain.
Sometimes pain is open like a prairie
(you can see it go on for miles),
or mysterious as a monastery
high atop snow blown
mountain peaks.
As I study the zodiac,
who will speak to divine its meaning?
Distracted to death
by the sound of shadows
seething their prophecies
in the corner.
The scars you gave me
are still bleeding from the bondage
you keep me in,
reading your intentions
like a holy text.
O god, my grief—
Why do you squeeze my heart
until only the dregs are left
for drinking?
And what happens next
for the sad-eyed man?
What happens to longing lost
on loveliness lonely for love’s
consummation?
I shall tell you plainly:
The world goes on regardless—
groaning in its rotations.
More at http://about.me/dklawitter.