Awake in the world,
you don’t always have to turn
the lights on in the dark —
find your own way out.
But what is difficult
is to live well,
live well through the sickening death
of light, reflection and shadow each day,
through fatal blossom and lingering leaves
and greyed snow and burnt skin.
We were defiant petals in the wind,
no measuring, no keeping score, just
preparing for endings and beginnings,
and that final ending where eternal begins
(something in the wind tells you,
the leaves fall complete, whole).