My colors fade to gray
and feed the vines and weeds that wind
around the remnants of the day,
of the days unbound, ways once found,
and settled to dust on the ground.
I have lost the center.
Hidden, but not hiding;
ignored, like the things people pass
each day on their way to and from
the palindrome of life I helped to feed.
Slow, low sigh, silo slow
to fall, neither ignoring nor defying
that pull toward the unseen center
working my weary soul into solitude.
Children still play inside me,
were once conceived inside me,
in soft hay-bed lofts, rafters exposed,
silver moonlight swimming in drops
of sweat and errant passion
lingering in the secret dark scent
of manure-moist loam,
of oil from the still-warm Farmall
red and tractor-fresh from now-fallow fields.
I once brought everything to life
in metaphors of love,
below and above.
Now, a pausing poet,
colors fading to gray,
sees but can do nothing but sieze
the weedy words that wind
around the remnants of his days
slowly turning to dust upon a page,
hidden, but not hiding
at the unseen center
as you pass us by.