The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future
There is no past
I live this moment as my last

There’s only us
There’s only this
Forget regret
Or life is yours to miss
No other road
No other way
No day but today

does time really move this fast, like a flickering flame, slow and steady when it’s first lit, then burning harsh and smoky as the tallow softens and melts, years dripping downward like spent wax, faster and faster until the flame at last flickers out?

it is approaching 9 years since those dark and dreary days when I lay trapped in my self-wrought impregnable prison of fear, making decisions and succumbing to indecisions that have irrevocably altered the arc of my destiny, and just a snippet of a song from good old B flings me back to older realities just as well as a fully working time machine would.

Without you,
the ground thaws,
the rain falls,
the grass grows.

Without you,
the seeds root,
the flowers bloom,
the children play.

The stars gleam,
the poets dream,
the eagles fly, without you.

The earth turns,
the sun burns,
but I die,
without you.

Without you,
the stars roar,
the breeze warms,
the girl smiles,
the cloud moves.

Without you,
the tides change,
the boys run,
the oceans crash.
The crowds roar,
the days soar,
the babies cry,
without you.

The moon glows,
the river flows,
but I die,
without you.

I’ve been trying to wrap myself in the darkness of autumn, but looking back, I see that this is the time when things, great and small, tend to fall apart, from my minor pathetic tragedies to the horror of the fall of great nations.

seeing death face-to-face day-in and day-out, dealing with her like a familiar customer, I have been swiftly punished with harsh guilt for my failures, and taunted with false hope to remind me of the futility of my Art. I have been forced to accept the tenous fragility of life, how easily the fire of life can be smothered and snuffed out. And I can’t help but think about that one final autumn in the not too distant future that won’t have spring to follow it.