Come, let us mourn the passing of our time
Spilt, a libation to the gods of years
Drunk, each bottle from a good vintage
The young wine harsh
Yet rich when it's past
The old wine mellow and wise
But finished (as always)
Cellar empty at last
Before it could reach the age
Of perfection.
So drink to the measure of all ancient pain
Old wars and attendant mutilation
To famine and drought and plague
All ways to advance the cause of Death
Who, discontent with his harvest
Has modernized his means
And where once he plucked
Now he rages.
Drink, to all he has slain.
We remember Death.
His face haunts our dreams
As the spaces between
Night wasted as day draws nigh
We cling to the pillow for just one more sigh
But it flees, a chance missed.
His face mocks our days
As we try to grasp our lives
In frantic abandon
Seeking to be free
Seeking that one savored moment
Longed for, but never held
When we stand on the mountain
Reach out our hand
And possess in our hearts all we see.
Ah, glorious vision! It melts in the morn
Vanishes in the burning blaze
Of rising sun.
The threads through time
Of all that lives
Are each connected to the other;
The twisted cloth of the Fates'
Relativistic prophecy of world lines.
We are but a single thread
Begun in the middle
And rapidly spun to our end
Wounded by all the shears that clipped
A gossamer strand that lay against us
Mended by the life-lines born
To grow thick around us as we grow thin
And finally snap lest we spoil the weave.
Thus might a thread grieve
For not knowing all the tapestry.
Thus might the painter's daub
Cry for when its work is done
And all the strokes it never made
Thus might a word weep
As it sees the lifting of the pen
That made its mark.
Ah, yes, we know Death.
He haunts us from our birthing breath
Until the last sighing breeze
Slips between our lips
In a rattling wheeze
Leaving only its echo
To fade in the night.
But far beyond forever
In the darkest place that cannot be
Floating, as I see it now
Outside infinity
Beyond the bounds of space and time
Looking back, we will then see
A tapestry of light.