Falling
Away
It's mid January.
Some things don't change.
The sunlight has found a path
through winter clouds.
The patterns it throws across the walls,
as it falls through bare branches,
are familiar.
It's the sun pushing back the covers,
and stretching its broad back,
to start the year, again.
In this house, for decades,
I've watched the seasons melt,
one into another.
Buckling soil, greening shoots,
rhapsodic bloom, endless lawns,
ripening seeds;
leaf-drop.
Mid January.
I sit watching timeless patterns.
The years have left their marks.
Only I, and the family pictures,
on the sun-drenched sill,
mark time . . .
falling away.
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