posterity

Where in the heart do these wishes arise? Where in the sky do these prayers reside? What great abyss, what ever after? The rattle of trashcans as the raccoons arrive. The stars don't stir though the earth may tremble. The dead do not rest and seldom revive. Keep your faith wherever you might need it. Keep your secrets until they are yours no more.

The night conspires to reserve all judgement. The gutters whisper and the leaves give up. Traffic prowls and dashes and roars. Headlights cast shadows that dissolve and manifest. Ghosts in the windows, shapes in the yard. Eyes fail and vision falters. The flesh stretches towards the incredible, the mind already lost to its own devices.

Here it waits, this fleeting notion. Here it waits, this bereft thought. No ancestors, no progeny, no carved inscription marring stone or tree. The drawn blade sheathed without tasting blood, the pistol holstered still cool to the touch. No speeches, no struggle, no loyal opposition. Tomorrow unmarked by these roughs and rewrites. Tomorrow unbent by the weight of today. Reach for the stars from on top of something taller. Dig up the dirt that will bury your name.