COME PALE MORNING OF WINTER

Come pale morning of winter,

come the silence of the landscape in

dreamless sleep, come

the desolation that grips

the mind like ice the frozen ground.

This short day, under

overcast skies born in gray light,

with its slowly flowing time 

a stream that carries us,

without helm or sculls

down, down from the heights

where our home in time and space

once was, with faces loved

and lost, with voices comforting

and silenced. Lost, we castaways

in this world grown lesser

drift through this vast cut

through our bleeding self

towards the evening dusk

and the greater darkness

that lies beyond the night;

there, flesh and thought

shall be torn away

and at last pain

shall shed us in the void.

18.02.2019