I went in search of death
In the cast down wreckage
Of someone’s temple nave
I went in search among flowers
Nodding to the wind’s words
Of woeful tales of war
I went among the blood troughs
Behind the women’s tents
All the children that never were
And in the storm of ice and waves
I went in search of the drowned
Among bony shells and blunt worms
Where the grains swirled
Each and every one crying out its name its life its loss
I went on the current roads
That led me nowhere known
And in the still mists afield
Where light itself crept uncertain
I went in search of wise spirits
Moaning their truths in dark loam
But the moss was silent, too damp to remember my search
Finding at last where the reapers sow
Cutting stalks to take the season
I failed in my proud quest
To a scything flint blade
And lying asward lost to summer
Bared as its warm carapace
of youthful promise was sent away
into autumn’s reliquary sky
Until the bones of night
Were nails glittering in the cold
oblivion, and down the darkness
death came to find me
– Before Q’uson Tapi Toc Anaster