Elujen

Elujen

An ember exhales in the silent crepuscule

Nestled in a hoary soot-bed

Against the curve of too-oft-heated brick.

Its dull vermillion wanes;

Near-cold, it flickers, falters —

Becoming yesternight's cinders.

A residue of simple tunes that together, once we echoed

Across the now-too-silent courtyard

And the empty stumps where children once sat.

As if to spite the coal and hearth,

A single spark alights —

To join its night-sky-bound clan-mothers.

Elujen! Elujen!

You are upcast, beyond our reach

And still.

Your lungs no more impel, your larynx shivers, closes

And sunrise ends our sight of you —

Until next we gather by the firelight.

- Limard Nemni