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Once, I as proud autarch

Thought my perimeter clear

The spearhead was fragmented then lost

Yesterday a weapon, now mere crutch

Soaring aquiline

To tumbling blackbird

A vanishing painting

Cryosphere of solitude

Slouching into coniferous darkness

Forest of the esoteric

Above and ahead, a gradient from grey into black

Clasping a woodcut of the firmament

While the cosmic abyss unfurls above me

In the clearing I meet true emptiness

Poised lotuslike as the acrid fire creeps then engulfs

Ashes from black to grey and even white