The Conversation

THE CONVERSATION

Dews on wilted petals, ephemeral hopes which die
Wrap around frozen trees, as white, thorny briars;
In the miasmic air
In the moonlit square
A fountain, forgotten, does lament and cry
And dolefully expires.

Next to the dreadful, solitary park
A breeze blows forsaken, ominous and dark,
Consuming the night, and its prescient fires.

Two dead figures raised from below
Walk upon the graves, the hay and the wheat;
One wraith asks the other in the still of the snow:
"Does your heart still beat
To my heart's beating?" - "No."
And they passed as ghastly spouses,
Through grasses and reeds, yellow and dead
No longer intertwined,
Their forms were cloaked by mists - nebulous, unkind.
And the night alone heard the words they said.

John Lars Zwerenz