Ash and Onus

Poem: A response to image 2043637

Ash and Onus

I have traveled beyond memory
To this place beyond thought, into decay.
No light to sustain me, no fruit for progeny;
My limbs flail from rending winds, burning,
While reaching for a promise, a hope, but feeling only stinging dust.

I am embedded in destinies,
Tendrils alive, diseased, mangled and scored by time.
The past haunts as the future cries indignities,
My succor waning, yet not dead, not yet.
So sore, my soul, full with regrets.

Dawn-less night belittles me,
My face cracked from anguish and parched tears.
Hope rattles a plea to sprout, to defy despair,
As death strangles me and the gray wind swirls,
Gathering my shards to oblivion.