In the autumn of our youth, the days ran
into one another with such reckless abandon that
one hardly had the time to believe they were passing.

Then were the ages when we fought for the years to come
          and against their rolling down the hill,
          with fresh limbs wrapped warm in
          the abject and imminent terror of our crisis,
When our lips were still wind-seared and cracked
          with the cackle and howl
          of the ever-present, knowing fear –
          the fear of knowing
          what awaits us all within nature’s grim intent.

But in the days of spring there are no answers.
There’s still a vacuum in the middle of our youth
That we’ve rushed towards with feigned integrity,
As though that made sense in the hour,
But being late takes half the time and requires twice the penalty.

So here we are, between the living:
          still fresh in the salt, as thick as the
          desert sand in which we tumbled,
in complete repose with the infant bleakness
          we’ve carried beyond our sleep.
Though we remain a part of this world only
In that we’re sinking into the slow earth rising beneath us
          As our final hand hangs behind the
          Glass of a shattered clock.

A tomorrow too daunting with a past so stagnant,
Still brimmed to the extent of their knowledge
Are the young, with something surreptitious
          And void of understanding.

What would it mean for us to remain nebulous?
To learn lessons that only ring true for the dead?
What will separate a life from an absent prayer,
A desperate soliloquy that you muttered in bed?

I only wish that someone would have told me the truth
While I was still youthful and lucid enough to bleed,
And perhaps whispered, a little softly,
That death is just an afterthought to what you need.