The Reaper's Lament

Show me

The colour of a raindrop

Capture the rapture

Of an Eagle

Carrying its prey on

High

A kidnapped shadow projected

Against steepled

Red rocked crags

Feeding its chicks

With bones and rags

Taunt me

With golden words

Written as a picture

Sparkling in fields

Of clovered grass

Burning in hot sun

Days whittled away

At the blunt end

Of a broken blade

A scythe without a handle

Propped up against

A tumbledown

With sagging roof

The reaper is

A victim of dry humour

Laughter is an echo

Of thunder

If only a life

Could withstand such a storm

As is borne on the north wind

There is no place

Like home

Twas ever thus

And never was it Kansas

Even as the memory

Of its constructed charm

Loses all regard

With the peeling of its

Skin thin facade

Life was never as hard

As it was for the horse

Pulling the plough

But that was then

This is now

And the horse is long gone.