Poem-a-Day, Entry 326--

Alone, at last.

The last rumble pulls away,

        leaving me yet again alone,

              standing at a place

    that was never meant to be;

            a little hazy,

     slightly less than sound--

            looking about the barren trees,

       the birds that soar and circle as they do,

                  without care,

    without though,

            nor meaning to their world

                      save the circle they can see,

            and wondering if that is what I have become;

                      far from my purposeful flights of fancy

       that took me so far,

                              so very far from home,

       and back once more--

               and I wonder as well

       if that was but a circle--

              one wide sweep of the world,

                                              of all that's in it,

                                                        only to return,

                           right back where I began,

            my only proof the memories,

                        my only gain

                  mere tastings,

      recollections of a life

   beyond my reach.

Friends are all gone now,

   the family away,

        and yet again,

           it is me,

       here in the cold,

   the barren leafless world--

           one last dying flicker

                  hanging onto the edge

        of all things,

              and then gone,

   pulled once more into the wind,

                    and away.