The Long Burial

With a strange, strangled gasp, we gulp the cold air Crisscrossed by bats in their mad zigzag dash From out of this cave, out from under this trash That suffocates us, up our noses and hair; Blind in the pitch-black dark, we make out the glare Of bright, shining people who turn into ash, And ashen-gray minds that sparkle and flash; The death of the light is a tangled affair. So we stumble on, tripping from day to day, Seeking sun in these pits of shadow and strife, Nodding and smiling even as we decay; As we go on walking the edge of this knife, It dawns on us that this anguish will stay Till the last shovelful of this burial called "life".