False Spring - Crippled Black Phoenix

Come along, we’ll ride together

Not far to go but it’s too far to turn back

Voices are calling our names from the top of the hill

We’ll raise a glass to appease them all

There, a stark and corroded memoria-

It creases the day into separate noon and night

How streaks of blight mar the long and rolling green

Comes the stride of the bold explorer

He made his name sailing 'round the golden horn

«I'll tell you that ashes are never envious-

The first to lose and the last restored»

A deal was struck and the room grew silent

Lending its weight to the new misgivings

In air too still to support any fragrances

How did time become so careless?

Where, the ivory stairs and the river of pools?

Where, the early blooms and the dawning?

It’s hard to remember arriving here at all

Stranger shapes coalesce in the deepening light

An owl obscures, then steals, the sun

It’s colder now than it was some moments ago