Mists of time around me, sweeping.
A lamp in the moving fog
of some greater darkness, I.
Impressions of progress and decay, fragmented
small glimmers of understanding
against the animal's short run.
Film spliced, images racing, overlaid
in bursts of light and shadow.
But what cares the screen beneath.
We run unarmed, to battles unwinable
and our love's the only comfort taken
and our small awarenesses
the only progress made.
Death and pain and dissolution and decay.
We are motes in the vortex of life's sink.
Our children only a momentary reverse.
Come the mists and darkness, I wait ...
weathered and drawn in animal skin
receptive to an unknown God.
Rose and Danny and Chris
and these lines on my face
and those on these papers I've traced
these are the only measures I can discern
of what I've wrought
in this time and mist and darkness.
gallagher
1 jun 84
Irvine, CA
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —