Evening falls, alone am I.
Tell me why I feel I'm dying,
Wilting like a weeping rose,
Before the twilight's rising.
My mind's a mire of thick grey mud,
Ashes of a day that's done.
Embers of inspiration spent,
On another tangled line of verse.
Cannot lift my thoughts from her,
My lady of the weeping willows.
I need her loving company,
But Fate cries no, she's not for me.
I pray she does not fall again
To serve the master who kept her chained,
A weeping dove in gilded cage,
The savage hawk's forced bride.
And so the raven sits alone,
Lost within his bitter art,
He longs to match the wicked hawk,
And drive him from the stormy skies,
To see his sad benighted dove arise.
But would the dove fly with the raven
Together borne on the winds of Fate?
I need to sleep, my art does drain me.
Sleep restores my faith in life.
The morning brings new will to carry on,
But now I could die willingly,
As empty night does swallow me,
Black on black, I am consumed.
Life's gibbering chaos fills me with fatigue.
Death seems but a pleasant dream,
To just lay down and be not, to forget about life's trials
Which fill my soul with weary need to be not what I must surely be.
But this feeling shall pass once Mistress Sleep lends me succor,
And then may I once again rise from the ashes of a day that's passed,
Reborn anew under the rays of the sun.
George Chadderdon © 1992