Quintessence of Dust

. . . lost between two infinities,
the infinitely large and the infinitely small.
- Blaise Pascal -

Among the khaki husks of last Fall's weeds
in Henry Second's Umberland a small
white flower leans in slightest zephyrs, bends
beneath the weight of but a cabbage moth,
then bobbing once again erect when free.

The chill of early evening settles on
a field beside a clear May stream about
a boisterous Saxon band emerging from
marauding raids against the Norman king’s
dominion over lands that once were theirs.

Through star-pricked deepest night, an aging fire
beside the forest’s foot protects the warmth
of slumber’s innocence while not one league
away, among the cooling ashes of
a manor house the grotesque slaughtered sleep.

The gray beginnings of the day arise
above the coughing embers’ dying glow,
while horses and dark grumbling men awake
to preparations for the violence
ancestral vengeance passed on to its kin.

Inside the great depression of a boot
beside a fire's heap, a small white bloom
lies flat among the skeletons of last
Fall's weeds where yet another flower will
tomorrow sway to merest thoughts of wind.



By Peter Freas
As published at The Mindworm.

Copyright 2005 by Pete Freas.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.