Not long ago,
I hurried my heart
to the rhythm of the day.

Each emotion amplified,
each action weary,
I went about business
much as bees tend to honeycomb,
or a great mountain
to the shifting plains
beneath.

In the passing of tomorrow,
lengthened shadows over ground
and years listed in names
rather than digits,
I do well just to venture my brain
so far as homoeostasis,

Scythe in hand,
I would play the cornfields,
cultivate them to size, to clear the path.

Instead,
each year that passes is another just gone.
Each journey home, a false promise
of reunion and return
of function to these bones.
Each year that comes is another false prophet,
each journey home, now a question
of home's definition
and of any possibility of return.