I am the guardian of ways

that no longer exist.

I no longer pretend

to be an angel

or a demon.  

My life has taken on

the contours of a man.

It's not enough: it doesn't

need to be.  In the shells

of our mortality

some resonance

still persists.

And it surfaces

on waves of flowerets

somewhere beyond

comprehension.

These rulers, these

sweet and blinded faces,

all are void in potential eternity,

sent evaporating through

the sculpted fossils

where the masks are

wan and lean:

and only the grave is green.