So the shovel splits the earth. So the absence of the ghost leaves us with nothing but dirt, the soil sweet with the mumblings of decay. The lights go out, and bright flies begin their shift. Busy wings and pale maggots, the crawling tide of life abides. From dust to dust, these slow circles all spinning away the world. Over there and back again, the wheels turn and turn. Standing still, and still standing. Each distinction a shade of sameness. Every word spilled upon the ravenous ground.
Dig a hole, make it deep, fill it up with reasons. The air hangs there, hot and dense and slowly seeping. Heat and brevity and the soul of discretion. Something comes from splitting the surface with hands full of grief. The salt of sweat, the salt of sadness, these fields full of rocks and bones. Nothing slumbers beneath this labor. Nothing comes along to take away the empty. Every grave dug is a kind of surrender. Each grave filled with a measure of your sacrifice. Pieces of your head mingled with pieces of your heart. Each loss leaving its stitches and scars. You always bury who you were.
The hours dwindle, the sky an afterthought. The ground is littered with cool dust and crisp dead leaves. Tree limbs reach to catch what sun still lingers, the last green and golden aspirations before the season casts its spell. The work of the world grinds on. We idle in our sentiments while the sediment endures. These hopes and wishes that once swarmed our every motion now stuck in the firmament along with all those absent stars. Pinning wings where shoulders were, flying and falling all the same until the end.
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