The last days of summer bunch together, creased by the wind and knotted with clouds. The winter constellations all skip auditions and start previews in the early hours. Sweet kisses turn treacherous as the sun settles into office hours. Promises that only seemed to ripen begin to rot. Now all the radio knows is how to ask for money, it whispers across the ragged distance all its offerings and premiums. Now no-one knows how to work their eyes, the light strung still in the high branches of the wavering trees.
Come along and call down your consolations. Come along and give the emperor your high sign, buttered bread and flea circuses. Let your voices rise up ringing, let the anvil of tour breath clang beneath the hammer of your heart. Make your claims to the crowds and the beasts, shout your wished for triumphs out as if it made them true. The pundits will bleat and gloat, they will gripe and blather. Another season host what feasts it may. All the bounty of the fields and the seas laid before us. Only gratitude is gone.
I save this for the good old days, the ones they keep for the telling. The valiant fight, the winning run, the way her smile collided with every definition known. The tales where we are so terribly clever and so terribly kind-- would that the world could be so wise and brave. Hard times, but so very noble and so very pure. The seasons change though their borders are settled in skirmishes of colored leaves and battles of maybe bring a sweater. The wind descends, setting dervishes whirling through the dust. The days are numbered, then the numbers begin again. I lose the long campaign through the usual foolish sorties and the attrition. My best days far behind me, someone else’s right there everywhere you look.
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