Three words, like…
well, you know the variations.
Take your pick.
They all involve parting.
Falling, they sound of leaves.
They can begin the death of a heart’s song.

I did not know the future.
I was open to the love of things whole and broken.

come come come
yes no wait
go

So I turned my face from the sun,
and I transgressed into hiding;
I did not paint my door with the blood of sacrifice.

I felt the Angel of Death
descend in the dark,
and he did not pass over.
And I became sick with death,
from the bones out,
as I knew he had come to claim the light within.

wait, a moment’s breath

See now, the Angel of Death had brought a gift,
as all things die and come clean and are born.

I was shown a boy, reading a book,
under a pine standing on a hill.
I was shown a girl, reading a book,
under a cottonwood waving in the breeze.

He spoke, and pointed-
“Who between you
are among the bones of the earth?
I will not visit you
for some time.
Now there is work to be done.”

Rain pools itself in tire tracks.
At morning’s break,
they blind in the light.
At night’s fall,
they scintillate in the dark.

Some things dry, and fade,
and some do not.

Now there is work to be done.