As I arabesque in the dark,
the hands of time slip on by.
Chained by inability to feel
anything apart from duty.

Clutching me,
heart and soul,
body and mind,
the tendrils of melancholy
embraces me as I leap through the air
with broken wings; the moon dims
but I see the waving of golden
threads in the air.

Am I nothing but
a gilded-caged nightingale?
Bound to be a drifting leaf?
Where my trills are soft and sweet
but no one hears nor sees me?

A dying lilt, and a frail enchantment.