---

Clawing through cold clay

I writhe at her odious whisperings

As pallid dusk to sanguine dawn she weaves.

Ablaze, brighter in mockery she shines

As feeble summer is cloven in twain.

Asunder I spread the roots, entwined

Like stagnant threads of gossamer spun

In this graven womb

No longer inhumed.

Together we drink, in her lurid stain,

The seeping nectar of Summer's veins

While naked boughs upon her rays

Shadowed arabesques trace.

They weep at my coming

Their once gleaming swathe

Of garments fade

At the waning of light and life

I from dying earth emerge

A wraith wrought beneath

With sunken eye and soiled caul,

Molded

Of carrion and sallow verdure

As if at the hand

Of a blind demiurge

A dismal night-bird's screeching call

Enfolding the wilderness;

footsteps fall;

the moon's bloodstained embers glow.