When late the hour and small the flame
Into a crooked world I came
To try the foolishness of this:
The quintessential distance
'Tween sole of foot and dust,
Uniting rot and rust,
Dividing love and lust,
And making every strain appear
As though it were the only one.

Unique, a thought, it might have been
If only, stunned, we carried back
Some broken bridges in our sack.
"Go long" I say into the wind,
And blow the ashes knowingly…

With quaking ground the sun appears,
Forgot I how to call it tame!
How did we fall into this game?
How will be both this black undo?
Into the arms of bloody blame
We'll carve, unflinching, there our name.

Believe, bereft, what is left I leave,
But what is here to claim I snatch.
Whilst pounding on my broken skull,
Crayon's Reddish rock of canyons
Crawl to meet the sudden fall, 'n
From undulating spires form
A contemplative sprawl.

Above the sprawl, a firefly.
And that is all; and then we die.

2005