I am winter's shadow across the desert
wandering in the back alleys and ravines
where the tumbleweeds go when the Monarch slumbers
to drink the last of the hiding frost
I am winter's shadow across the desert
a funeral-gaze across the Pit
to the titans that clutch the edge of my world
where, this year, Father draped no mantles
I am winter's shadow across the desert
greeted in silence by a broken landscape
whose children watch with clandestine eyes
awaiting my death in the spring
I am winter's shadow across the desert
the last grain of sand in the hourglass
the last muffled roar of Limantour
the last ray of moonlight on the horizon
_the last of my kind._