War

Numberless, the blades fall and rise,

they acquiesce to the violence of the wind,

golden in the sheen of the farewell sun.

A ghost you now are gone,

at the bottom of the fall,

buried in the curves of the foothills.

All I hear is the shrieks of sky,

as they grind your echo down

to gun powder.  There was a time

before this war, a time when

your words didn't come out of my mouth.

Lost all but the wounds of memory,

too raw still, but no longer gaping.

So I return at night to the first fires still burning;

inhale the acrid smoke of dreams,

think on the final pleasures before the war

and I ache.

Just the fragments like shrapnel.

Laughter like smoke.

By the wrist and running;

Pushing down, rising up

and silent.

Always we know the weapons of space

cannot kill the gods of time.

And though the spears are short

having never enough rain to grow,

the road is straight enough still

to be sharpened to an edge.