words

sail about this departing night,
the hours have formed a mind
obeying only the ebb and flow
of some greater darkness without.

a nightbird has taken my spirit,
i watch with tired eyes
the tree limbs wake and shudder
at her nimble footfall,
the cyclone of insects
in their desperate attempt
to merge with light
are consumed again and again,
this thoughtless pursuit of the unattainable
their ultimate undoing.

this age has long since expired,
like light from distant stars
we will know only after
the moment has passed.

the bird calls out to the dark,
a grieving vertebrate of unknown fortune,
those black eyes eons of insight hold,
that which will never escape,
such is their charge,
such is their way in the world.

under brick and mortar
the earth moans,
what we take we offer back
in the form of our departed,
forever bound to the laws
of a greater purpose
left behind perhaps by the macrocosm
of kindred souls well beyond
the veil of these times,
these strange quixotic hours
spent in the company of nightbirds
and their prey,
by ancient objects in the sky,
this tiny speck of dust
floating here in the void,
firm in its quiet lonely orbit
around the great beating heart
of some cosmic monster
beyond men’s knowing.

-S.C. Martinez