Fifty Times. Plus One.

Fifty times I've stood, this angle, staring at the sun

Watching the wizened ravens claw their jet black reflection

Ever closer across the contrailed sky

It waxes more distant and weakened to my

Tired eyes, reddened and moist from dried up dreams

Face wrinkled and hair peppered gray
Shifting my weight from one weary leg to the other

Hoping the lesson is truth

On Sundays the poise I imagined evaporated

June repressed an earlier montage of color with a scaly, scalding green

And burned off the remnants of the sweet blossoms of spring

How many more times at this angle to stare at the sun

How many more claw marks will etch the shallows of these eyes

I could have walked away from fifty suns or the next one

Were I were older in my heart or younger in my soul

Were the sky darker

If hard were too hard

If the winter never turned to spring

With its aroma of petals soaked in their nectar and dew

If my autumn were never emblazoned in deep auburn joy

Fused with torrential shards of gold
Splayed across these mountainous waves

I could have walked away from fifty suns

In confusion and rage, tears and laughter, real or feigned

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

Were I and I another

Certain is 

I shall face the light if it comes

just reread this. it's kinda gross. (11 april 2014)