Autumn’s Iron

The sun is paler as it withdraws

and beneath Autumn's iron greys

we age and the available paths seem to narrow.

My threads of patience are shred from daily repetitions 

and I see I am weighed down by these marble opinions.

We have bred sociopaths who thrust and jostle in the fray.

Who we hope will flounder.

We have all forgotten how we were born:

bloody and unsheltered from the warm cushion

of amniotic simplicity.

Consigned to wet nurses of technology,

suckled on the teat of this pap - 

how quickly we are exposed to the consciousness

of this interminable fucking series of transactions.

The colder exchanges, gestures and offers,

counter-offers, the negotiations.
 

But I have dreamt of my nakedness and freedom:

how I rejoiced until I encountered others

and then fled in a frantic search

for clothes to put back on.

These are the messages we send ourselves

when we are asleep; only to find when we wake

that the sandcastles we had built were dismissed 

by a wave to eroded stubs and ruins.

The light coppers, trees forget their hope

and our feet bruise the leaves they've lost.

This procession of tropes and symbols

that populate our collective unconscious:

I have been Eve and Mary (both Marys),

I have been Lot's wife, forever in a glance

over my shoulder. And jaw unlocked

from pillar of salt - gone are the days

of my quiet or blind faith in anything.

 
Image from pixabay.