Autumn Incertitude

The seasons pass.  Autumnally deep tone
Sets in; souls wander, each and all- alone.
Fires in sap and blade blaze out, blood-red
And blood-purple, meeting a sky blue-dead.
Some beetles cross the road, and killdeer shriek
And Time takes up his prey in his cruel, curved beak.
One dares to stare into that ice-cold eye;
One reads its prophecy and calls it "lie."
I seem to see his talon-grasping years
Squeeze closer, tighter, choking me with fears
Of failure, and of fading hopes and light,
Till I gasp in pain to the stone-deaf night.
But I defy him with a thundering heart:
One thing, one, keeps Fate from me apart.

Beings in hell below, in heaven above,
All, all, know this: that once, I was in love.