Aftersong

A poem about dying.

Blind I wander in the wastes
of cities scraped up in dustbins
by old maids dancing to the tune
of a drum I cannot hear
or hear too soon
by the hillside
where once I piped to sheep and bears
and trees and dens and graves
there lay a lass with eyes so green
they grew out of the even's seam
till they bloomed from my eyes as well
and they pronounced me Jezebel
but the cities stretch now to the east
and their ruins make love to the western sky
and now and then I hear them passing by
and I leap out of bed and shout
and I drive them to the rout
till I sleep again in the cradle
of the forest and the sky.