STAND II

Beneath a sky veiled in black velvet silence
The moon’s silver sliver grins like a knife, a greedy eye
Carving hollow light across a hallowed field
Where footsteps dissolve and flee
Consumed by the earth’s whispers
Each step is a though forgotten land
With each breath
As wraiths sigh
From the shadows of lost dreams

Trees loom ancient sentinel; watch
Brittle bones forgotten, lost
Reaching into the heavens heart 
Begging for mercy, on barren waste 
Tree limbs snap in the wind’s cruel hands
The air shivers 
With the memory 
Of lives buried blurred & burn

In this barren sanctuary, N frost. Stand I
Even the stars stare in oblivion 
With suspicion and disdain
Their cold, indifferent gaze
Mirrors reflect emptiness 
Carved deep in the hollow chest of this, my world
The snow, so pure, so undisturbed, I bare
I lie stretched thin to the madness below
A burial shroud for truths I dare not name or know

What spirits wander here, there unseen
Passing onto their frozen ground
Whispers curl from the shadows like smoke,
Words dissolve before they can be heard; I stare
A language no human tongue can shape
Speak of sorrow, of time unwound
Hearts abandoned in the spaces between breaths

You can feel it, can’t you? I know, I will.
Weight of what’s been lost
Unspoken ache of broken light
Tangled in the roots of this night
Pain echoes, stretches across centuries,
Twisting through silence a scar, bright n clear

In the distance, something sits, unmoving
Flickers of movement at the edge of my vision
No, place to run from shadows that conspire
When I carry the darkness inside

The snow is not clear only clean, remembering
Beneath my fragile surface,
Secrets buried deep, my soul seeps
Eons refrain and moonquakes the eternal night
Even the stars have forgotten their names.

Even old wound remembers the blade
I stand alone, though no voice greets the world
Only the silence,
Only the wind knows
Only the frost bites, black regret 

I stand listening 
I listen deeply to the night
I hear the whispers
The soft sighs of spirits 
Mourn; not for me
A collection of fractured mirrors cast
Reflecting nothing
Hollow absence of what was I, human

Night stretches endlessly
Each hour is heavier than the last
Sky, so distant,
I walk, but the snow consumes my steps,
As if the earth itself is trying to erase my soul
Forgetting I ever walked this earth

Maybe I am just fleeting shadows
On the surface of something far older, far colder.
On this night, fresh and clear
Where the air is serene
And the snow lies in mocking purity
The world hums with quiet violence
Of what remains unseen

Copyright © Poet Tellaferro | Year Posted 2024

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