~PART 3:  …to the woods

The forest is beguiled by a transitory lullaby —
a father, from the depths of loss, murmuring
subtle sounds in the heart of the woods.
The trees harness his voice and crack the sky,
crack the fading light so the night can
hold its echo hostage to a third or fourth degree.
Till the wilds run free, unassailed by reverence,
carried by the night-woods, they texturize his will.
He is crumbling from within…
their echo turns his dewy blood to dust.

•   •   •

Sometimes the rain is silent.
Sometimes it bears witness to violence
without losing its luster.
He wears his bones now like ash
beneath the poisoned grove where roots and
their underpinnings slash their pin-prick tails; —
he is worrying the broken soil in his broken fists
like a mouthless prayer unadorned by beauty,
for there are no voices here within the lyric of the dead.
It fades — the percussive intricacies of wind invade.

•

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