John Tansey (June 4th,1961...Gemini / Bronx, New York)

PARALLELS OF MORTALITY IN AUTUMN

Something epic, looms
over the dismal gray cold
of Autumn's
overwhelming utter sadness
in the vanquished heart;
that slows summer's combustible pace
to a stillness,
mirrored in the pensive faces
of those
awed at all the Autumn dead
that lay leaved at their feet.

Something pale, plumes
above an Autumnal brush fire
doused,
by this mid November's rain;
vaporous gray clouds
pall bear this vestige
of the barren heart's
sloughed colors;
cobalt greens and cadmium yellows,
smoldering
to its bone white pallor of ash.

Something tragic, dooms
the foliage in the winter wood,
as our extremities, withdrawn
to the aftermath
of the parboiled earthen heart's
bare bronchial trees;
some sulfuric sediment, embering
in the sallow air
succumbs,
to the smoke of an old war
we wage until our heroic defeat.

Something grand, illumined
in the long shadowed distance
of a purple sky's
dark shrouded clouds;
some monumental quest
overwhelming in loneliness,
the naked heart's
stark terror of the id,
forebodes
this whole dark epic of man
plodding out of the awesome gray mist.


Something lingering, resumes
with a longing, like for those we grieve
planted deep
in the earth
of the mourning heart,
some embered remembrance
of them,
like leaves in their green age
grows
as fond prayers of fair days
on such sparse ones like these.

Something ominous, glooms
as the proud incongruous
crescent of the black crow,
perched upon a limb
in the sparse vermillion wood:
puce colored corpuscles of leaves
parallel grief
in the conquered heart's
coagulated wound
that eclipses
this metaphor of Autumn with a private loss.

Something final, consumes
this naked sensuality of Autumn
with all things that end
in sorrow,
breaking the spirit
of the giving heart's
commiserated sage
numbed by loss, to pray alone
beneath the white washed stars,
not knowing if God
is among that brutal cold.

Something bittersweet, blooms
in the slender sapling, tossed
to Autumn's embered war
of attrition,
some surviving magi
in the sojourned heart's
tender flesh wound
of compassion
learns, through the barren casualty
of life, lost
to the slow death of the year.


January 4, '92 John Thomas Tansey


Copyright ©2007 John Thomas Tansey