The Fallen Leaf | Jackson Mettler
A man sits alone in the autumn wood Though the wind whips its way through the trees A frustrated jockey Lashing out, relentless, He is still, Shielded from the cold Not by attire But a disembodied concentration A disregard for physical being Concerned, instead, with a force Cutting far deeper than the wind And with much greater intensity A cold no coat can negate Thorn insoluble Illness Debilitating A thief Making off with the hope Of recovery A shattered, ironic existence A life bereft of meaning Pulled to and fro by gusts of wind The buoy moves with each wave No attempt to resist The wind fills his nostrils Tugging at his tightly shut eyelids Seeming as if to say “Wake Up” -UnyieldingA man possessed By single-minded focus Fueled By the hollowing fear Of not finding
Of never finding Salvation from this existence Shrouded in loneliness and futility A cure for this disease Possessing the strange ability To numb the senses And wear away at the soul Leaving only the hollow pang Emptiness. From deep within Primordial bells ring out Filling every moment with their screams Making vague attempts To extend his mind Outside the limits of his skull Reaching out for something Anything Greater than himself Desperately traversing the ether Only to run, face first, Into the walls of his own consciousness Or rather The paradoxical nature Of venturing outside the bounds of the self, The self, one’s only guide How to see what cannot be seen? So limited by the eye Can one ever look to distant planes Or find something more Than what is rightly available? For as is the nature of that which is not It is not
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