senescence

There’s always a separation to that old feeling, and feeling old. The longing for the lost versus the complaining of the bones. The descent of night into the deep forest against the wounds that now heal so slow. Loosing spirals of smoke toward the heavens while the last dragonfly of the day darts and gleams while the dusk settles in. All the old grievances to take arms against as the new order within me show me where it hurts. Separated from the solace, dwindling in a dodder beneath the waning moon. Watching the children work the world as they play, unaware of all our unforgivable betrayals. There is no end to this dissolution, there is no doing enough.

I stick to the travels of shadows, I carry the fire and harbor the flame. The green leaves sway and bow as the night brings out the givens. The wind does as it pleases. The predictable passions and the sorry complaints of age as my beard grows back not salt and pepper, but maybe sugar and cinnamon, the reds gone brown as the flesh trends blue. The flies that try to make a meal of me give way to the mosquitoes that take me for a snack. A young man walks two young dogs, headphone oblivious to their course. The Monk Quintet swing Locomotive somewhere from the long ago as the night comes calling like a shroud.

It’s a sad transition, from the vital limbs to the contrition of the flesh. It’s a sorrowful passing from are to was. Tense beyond the past or present, spitting flecks of tobacco and blistering invective while she mends the world, one hand in the earth and one on the moon. The star stippled night a blur beneath the cloud of streets and rooftops while she stitches the stars and salts the oceans. Tires break traction, spinning donuts in the intersections as the junkies and the tweaks plot their fixes and capers while the woods flourish in the very beating of her heart. The magic doesn’t miss me, the feeling isn’t mutual, I decay with the crumbling ramparts all around. The weakness underscored by the labors left, the end always in sight. A shell released from the barrel, a rope reaching down from the rafters. A story always over, the night always near.