LAST WORDS...
The tree is old and haggard
Two hundred years of wind and rain
Have seized their toll. Her ragged
Hair is torn by the screaming eastern air
She sighs and shudders, bends and bows
Her ancient head. A few last leaves wheel down,
Upon the grass, like tears.
It is the end.
But then I hear…..
The bony fingers of the lime are here
They scratch the glass and clutch;
She moans and claims me for the night.
I turn away and through weary eyes
See the dancing lines of black on white.
More sickly now they reel and lurch. My
head begins to spin; I won’t be taken in
Again, by words that lie.
On the couch - a tuft of soft and wheaten hair.
A year ago, my dog lay there.
As usual, I am reading. I feel his gentle breath, unheard,
His dark and sparkling, liquid eyes seek mine and, when they meet,
He yawns and lays his head across my feet.
I feel his warmth, his heart, his life.
And it is life I need - not empty words.
Behind me in my room, the dark is deeper now.
The storm still prowls about outside
And the branches tap-tap around the window.
Shadows sway and slowly sink into the walls.
My stiff and silent friends, drawn close around me,
Sense that something is amiss,
Their voices turn to whispers
And they respectfully depart:
Gold and green and blue and brown, they fade and steal away -
Return as shades to their own different night.
Now, there is no light. The darkness is a velvet pall
That lures me to the comforting, deceitful sleep.
But I will not make my grave in dying light. And lies.
I want the caress of flesh, that moistens and stiffens into life,
The fig that offers its dark bloomed skin to the loving knife,
Reveals and opens up the juice within. We drink each other deep
Our mouths are welded together and our tongues are locked
But ours is the silent scream of joy that spins the lovely world,
Screws up and chucks away the frigid lying word.