My songs are strange

Surreal and full of woe.

Preludes to coming grief

I’m afraid to feel.

Knowing in my mind

Of grief’s inevitability

Is not enough.

Hope conveys unreality.

Prepared, and yet unready,

Knowing the unknown.

Time is swift as light

And slow as death.

Precious days are drifting

Fast, slow, chaotic.

Days of timeless living

In a small and fragile hour.

Time that happens only once,

Gone into memory.

Private and secret illusions

Of my sundered heart.

Sharp seconds of crystal memory

Nurtured into steel

To be recalled and lived again

When winter comes.

When you are gone

And I am left alone,

Where in that grey limbo

Will my place be?

© Dawn McDonald
January 2005

Graphic: "Pain"