all that is between

dust … they say ... dust ... to dust, yet I have measured the stars counted their intervals felt hope's whisper on my neck, keen kissed and cursed its face … I have tasted sweeter tongues cried for the bitter phrases they wagged given fealty to their resonance and the tamps and scratchings they quicken … I have cradled inception in my hands felt it tremble with wonder and fear … I have gazed on the bloom of consummation torn the tapestry from its form and let it dance in my skin … I have spilled raptured coursings to my veins yielded all I knew and held to their heat soaked my marrow in its drip and laughed at the madness of it all … I have defied oblivion’s cold consequence breathed its acrid air and bestirred its black womb … I have entered other souls - swum up the rills to their source and merged, chaotic, in the depths there lost forever ... complete … dust to dust, indeed still, all that is ... between. Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, March 14, 2018; rewrite November 25, 2023