28 Winters

Life bears down mercilessly

my spirit's crushed like a rock in God's hand

my dust scattered in the wild wind

Torment's my shadow, I've stopped dreaming 

it's no better place to be, nothing works

air is all I seem to ever birth

Who'll show me a peppercorn of solicitude?

there's no one left on the battlefield but me

Who now is more inimical to myself

than myself? 28 winters in a row

seems like hell has frozen over

and the devil's come to camp in my yard

Barely do I remember lying

carefree in the sun, scarce do I remember

living. Was I ever a carefree child?

I'm struggling just to exist, sometimes 

I wonder what it'd be like to stop

The skinny cyprus outside my door

wears her blown mini far from her bare feet

arms stretched way above her head

her hands come together in prayer

as if though the higher they were

the quicker Almighty God would answer

For years now she's stood there just like that

waiting, unanswered, not moving an inch

but growing ever taller, digging

her toes deeper into the earth's womb

the seathing seasons raging against her

her stockings laddering, her flesh peeling off

and now satans lying in her skirts shade

But Cyprus dances through the four seasons

and all the more wildly through the worst storms

she's my paragon of hope and endurance

I'm going to lie in her arms, soon she will

be in heaven, I with her and satan

will be no more and the place he has stolen

will be covered in a thick mat of Sorrel