Rest Well, For It Is Now In Peace That You Dwell.

The smell that greeted me was one

 in which the by mere number of my years,

 Has become so painfully familiar to me,

For it brought forth unto me a foul consequence

That had lain dormant within chambers of my mind.

 Therefore, now I stop and I wince,

 for I have long lost my nerve for such a task as this.

For it is within the course of nature and of ever revolving days,

That such weighty matters of this brooding heart now come into play.

 I have dealt far too often with such grievous affair as this.

Oh, but I knew this day was coming, and knew it was coming very soon,

For it was just last week, in which I had viewed

 his emancipated figure beneath the stark fullness of the summer moon.

Oh, how I grieve ever so quietly, as I mourn in silence unto myself.

For I think of him now in terms of his courage, and little of anything else.

For he knew, as I knew, that the shortness of his days grew.

As well, as he must have known that he would soon be gone,

Moreover, he knew of me, and that it would be I and I alone,

Who would in the solitary quiet of darkness give placement of his bones.

You know…I can see him still in the recollections of my minds eye

 Back…oh back in another time

When he bore his youth and life was his perpetual game.

Yet now I watched him in this vision of the past

As I plunged the shovel a little deeper

In order to seal his final journey at last.

Goodnight my small one,

goodbye my little friend.

And just as to you I promised

I am here for you in the end.

Rest well…for it is now in peace

That you dwell.

J. Allen Wilson © 2005

 www.jallenwilson.com