Old porch, rocking chair,
Drifting cigar smoke,
Fog in the air.
The drip dripping of dew water down
the drain,
Tap tapping against the roof.
Take a deep breath, inhale and exhale, let the arm slide down.
Like the old man said, years ago, don’t be alone.
Oh brother- if he could be here now.
Lonely whisper of the wind,
A single bird-cry cutting through
the heavy gray sky.
A meadow waving gentle and slow,
the breath of the distant seas,
obliviously passing by.
The old house creaks behind;
a museum of relics from an empty life;
faded faces in picture frames,
long dead smiles and forgotten names,
untouched books, lined with dust,
a leaking faucet ringed with rust,
Letters unsent,
a dozen old records,
done and dead,
a bottle of booze and …
whatnot,
of sorts, by the bed.
Discarded coats
from long ago
carrying all those faded scents,
those smells of apple and of mother’s pie
from a childhood farmland home,
long since burned to ash,
foreign memories from foreign times.
Shadows creeping in peripheral sight,
a shallow breath and muted sigh,
As the light seeps and thins,
bidding farewell to the life of day.
Blood, it slows,
Skin, it goes,
Flesh, it wilts to a muted gray,
Breath, it leaves, following the sun rays melting into
the edges of the earth,
the last yawn of a dying day.
The smoke rolls off those thinning lips,
cigar tumbles to the ground,
a final wisp of air and
a single silent tear
There are no shouts or cries,
or prayers to God in fear,
no grasping of hands and whispering of words,
no lovers and nothing more.
Just a fading figure,
a smudge of paint, lost in this world,
out of its time,
a wanderer passing by,
with a last defeated breath,
vanishing beneath the darkened sky.