Shadows

In his last minutes of life, he closed his eyes where shadows appeared like blackbirds beneath the moonlight of lost thoughts above the misty graveyard of his soul Ghostly apparitions of sadness haunt an old mind Past illusions of love Whose faces are etched in the fractured glass of the heart and lay among the cobblestones of despair leading to the ancient gate of tombstones that stand in the overgrown twisted weeds of yesterday Where memories were painted on his heart with a soft colored brush of expectations captured in the imagination of tomorrow and dwelled in the sanctuary of coupling and understanding that disappeared from life's turmoils, turning an empty husk that decayed in time as they passed through...as visitors who met along the way Yet stay as an image in the mind's eye from long ago These are the shadows of lost loves Whose breath raptured a poet's contentment with precious passions, infusing the heart with glorious wonder buried now in the sacred ground with a soul's reflection Where nothing enters but solitude as he waits for the moment of timeless dark that falls upon the last second of breath 10/19/19