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.