frail

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-