STILL

still the un-dark, the unearthly quiet
this quiet beneath the earth, this hollow tomb
seven thousand days and more (twenty times
around the sun, invisible) whispered, withering
a thread of dream-time, grey twining roots
in the grave/rich soil of the world-between-worlds
nurture and decay. endless

still the unending, the ever-still
tears to stone and salt—the weight of all time,
and the weight of the world (every world waits:
a hushed breath from one to the other,
as if remembering the could-have-been;
the shiver/thrill of hand-in-hand) a heart caves in upon itself
an instant, or an eternity. time is/

still the unkept, the filled-with-regret:
a collapsed, crushed-beneath, still-waiting
while under earth i have turned from one thing
into another (from your One to an other
) for time is the all-consuming, all things equal
now diminished and low, a faded echo, i am
hollow-hearted and frail. immemorial

still the un-dark, the unearthly quiet
this quiet beneath every quiet, a death-mask hush
weeping without sound—the grief that passes understanding.
sleep comes for me on dark wings, a monarch's shroud
a swell of ink-in-the-void, the unbreathing-yet-alive
wound in the fabric of the outer dark, orbiting, peripheral
approach and decay. endless