I visited the house of Pre-mourning.
For I was lost again, in time and in life.
I stepped closer and closer, approaching.
The old woman, she held the doors wide open.
Staring deep into my eyes,
All within the walls, old age, fading.
Remember the question, "Do you have faith?"
The young receptionist, gatekeeper,
sat smiling. "Who would you like to see?"
The past, the present, a memory?
of the shriveled life that used to be?
Of course, I came to believe,
what the words of the gods could not convince me.
I stepped forward and explained,
That a friend was waiting on the seventh stage.
Waiting patiently.
Moving forward, past the music, past...
Past the plants, the plays, the lots cast...
Up the first flight of stairs.
And I waited for the fog to sink in.
I stood listening, to the memories of days.
There was... the stench of decay.
Sounds of distraction, stories unfold.
And collections of lifetimes,
Laid out within studios, memories untold.
Staring blankly, resisting, gray, and old.
I passed on further between stages.
On and on, denser and grayer.
Suffocating, the life within.
I struggled to see. The doors left ajar...
And the silent shrieks, cuts, scars...
I found the room at the end of the hall.
Untagged, unnamed, undisturbed.
Though I sensed the life within, perturbed.
I knocked, the voice beckoned to enter.
The lock clicked, my heart quickened.
In the sweat, the knob slipped.
And my feet, my will, deterred.
The door cracked ajar, I saw from afar,
the shadow of the being who once was,
so much more, so much more.
She stood before the shrine,
with no libations of wine.
still hoarding the spoils of time.
And all within... all within, was the past,
the present, and memories, and the shriveled life
that used to be, and the beckoning hand of time.
I could feel the beating of the clock,
each pulse rattling through the walls,
and it had given birth, but it had its tolls.
She stood alone, against the window,
resisting, raging against, the winds of time.
With crooked back, and tears in her eyes.
No doubt questioning, conception, and cycles,
of life and times past and death and time.
This great montage, her great collage,
though, painted a painting so grand,
so magnificent, beyond understanding.
She could, she could sense my fear,
so her voice lowered to a whisper,
to ease my fear, to draw me nearer.
And the closer, the closer that I peer,
I saw no change in those eyes after all these years.
But within, the shadow... of a specter!
The fear of the night... Terrified.
I clamor for words... my utterings unheard.
I remember my mission, and I mutter..
"Do you have faith?"
"No, pray for me."
And I close my eyes, and hers remain open.
And I see night, and she sees phantoms.
We seek the passing, though we seek life.
We seek for God, but we still see night.
We seek truth and all it contradictions.
Can we find peace in this world's chaos...
May we rest at the end of the day.
Let night hold the promise of dawn.
Poetry
