the ground beneath me

started to give way

and I found myself

sliding down an incline

at accelerated decline

and my eyes

saw the former vistas

I had traversed

gleaming like a late

sunlit afternoon

on the brickface

of apartment houses--

that evening glow of

elongated gold--

how sweetly memory

renders the torturous

journey of that ignorant

progress to this moment

of unspecified half-forgotten

grief and of full blazing recall

of joyousness so ecstatic

its only trace is enough

to color the whole life

in a weary satisfaction

strong enough to balm

the butt-burning slide

into the shadowed forests

below--

the very earth reclaiming

the bodies it lent to us

as we leave the peak of this life's

occurance--the unrepeatable times

preserved in other realms

ready to receive us on

our arrival on the forest floor--

but in no rush--

no rush at all

I've my whole life to get there--

and a whole life to come--

the closing of the earth

an opening of the sky

Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.