Tom's World

My past is colored in browns and greys
Like an Andrew Wyeth painting.
I sit here in my wooden chair
With my face turned toward the scene:
The grey oaks standing in the Winter world,
Dead leaves strewn upon the bricked walk,
The limestone headstones
All lined neatly in a row.

Fungus flowers spring up from the limestone
And acid rain burns the surface,
Reducing the stone's mass
And all the pretty sentiments, the names and dates
Are slowly disappearing with time,
Eroding from the tablet's memory.

The houselights are still burning
And the windows are lit from within.
It appears that someone is home;
The house stands there in silhouette,
Situated on the hilltop against the night sky
Above Dunlop Lane,
Down from Rossview Road.

But it is only a tracing
Scarred on the mind's surface
And the scar is healing over
As time passes
Like a slow, dreary rain
On a stone-cold, grey day in January.

The brutal wind screams across the hilltop, like a banshee.

"Look away, look away, look away..."