Csardas

Thistledown days drifted adagio on the tide,
each infant moment a luxury of forgetfulness,
each childhood year a chasm of lost enchantments,
Lush with time, we have drunk our fill of nepenthe.
Silken days, when the warp tensed to infinity,
danced a saraband of sleep, sighed softly in the sun,
watched a feather unwind its solitary gyre.
Spindrift days heard the sea breathe upon the shore,
heavy with years and the crush of tiny shells.
Oozy days slid dolce far niente to the horizon.

We are only mayflies,
ruffling the lace
of a cosmic web,
Twitchy with urgency,
we fear to wake
the spider.
He holds the threads
with furred palps,
Deathless he waits,
passionless, patient.
Once enmeshed,
we strain against
the tension, we feel
the agony of
fate unbound.
Bodies dissolve,
minds sucked dry,
spirits strewn
across the decades.
We are threshed,
flailed, winnowed.
We are stretched
thinner and frailer
on the wind.

Da capo or fine