Patmos

Summer crept away quietly,

as though it had another engagement

I had forbidden it.

 

 

Autumn opens its mouth,

blinking its expressive eyes,

and I begin to court it slowly

to draw it out of its guarded hours.

 

Now begins the patient continuance

the waiting in shadows

and adjustment of myself

in syllabic mirrors.

Now the peeling away of self

the apocalypse of one’s own soul

begins. As though the rest had been

a prologue to my real life.

Now I venture guesses

Now I sally forth into the lonely rivers

of my former tears

Now I examine my sadness and joys with equanimity

as a scientist with a quantifiable phenomenon

and approach

the intangible fruit of a million hours, burning