Anticipating death in loneliness and the dark,
He sees a light, bright beyond the window.
It calls him up, beyond the house; a mark;
a sign that transcends his lonely life.
He leaves the house to wander in the park
where dappled moonlight flutters on the grass.
Where trees stand wind kissed, bare and stark
and night-birds call all lovers to a kiss.
His life has passed, long spent youth a lark
of summer days in cannabis perfumed haze.
With sweet limbed youths to whom his soul did hark
and bodies tangled, tumbled in the woods.
Then middle age with wasted years and loves so stark
and memory leeching slowly from the mind.
The hurt; the pain; the sagging aching flesh a mark
of age that comes without respite; uninvited.
Then finally the present; that final step into the dark.
The journey that we all must take one day.
No loved ones round him; no friends to leave a mark
of his passing; of his journey to the gate
within which lies an imagined eternal park,
a pleasure ground of love for all eternity.
Perhaps a timbered hall within where maidens lark
while warriors feast to Valkeyrie music sweet.
Or perhaps the heaven that many seek to mark
With quiet eternity, the solitude of endless peace.
Maybe though that's just a wishful dream
To shield us from the hounds of death that bark
And whine so mournfully in the endless night.
A fantasy to shield us from a nightmare stark
Of non existence, that thing we fear the most.