Far in black, white blooms in an arched crystal From the last studio light, Now that the set has crumbled around me. Now I know what happens When the youngest children Are too old for the show and shenanigans. Santa's long gone and Satan too. What collapsed this place. Was it you? Was it the wind or the waves That come naturally like the tide, Or my own accidental hex? The broken ceiling's Bones revealing light above, And just to prove I've lost my mind, I've begun to write outside the lines That outline the box And define the hoax.
I stood in the disenchanted field Amid the stubble and the stones, Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me The song of my marrow-bones." -End of Summer, Stanley Kunitz