Life's Dusk

Life’s Dusk

A serenity slowly overshadows the land,
As death creeps over the dying.
A hushed silence, dewless and dry—
Like the countenance of mourning, run out of tears.
Wispy, angel-spun gold crowns a kingdom of clouds;
Light slipping behind the horizon, beckoning…
Follow me, leave this dark for an eternal day.
You have but to run after my rays, walk my westward path through the sky.

What sublime reality does that world-edge conceal?
Where does the sun sleep when night torments me?
Lengthening shadows measure my months and years.
This no longer resembles the sunrise of youth,
Nor the reflection of the midday sun on age-ripened wisdom.

There is now consolation in the impenetrable dark of an afternoon forest—
For it tells me, by its contrast, that ‘day’ is but mortal
And so must be, therefore, the reality that it hosts.
Both will die, the veneer shatter
And I will see true day, as it is beyond these fragile hemispheres of black and blue glass

Dusk will cloak the lying pretender, day
Its death throes muffled under this dark mantle
Its lack of dignity exposed by the mocking of the sunset kookaburras.
Wounds made in the light healed with the balm of death’s night.
I’ll close my eyes to sleep, knowing the sun will never set on tomorrow,
The ‘tomorrow’ that will be
My first real today.