If Only My Heart Were Stone.

How Does A Man Decide In What Order To Abandon His Life?

Then They Set Out Along The Blacktop In The Gunmetal Light, Shuffling Through The Ash, Each The Other's World Entire.

When One Has Nothing Left Make Ceremonies Out Of The Air And Breathe Upon Them.

By Early Evening All The Sky To The North Had Darkened And The Spare Terrain They Trod Had Turned A Neuter Gray As Far As The Eye Could See. They Grouped In The Road At The Top Of A Rise And Looked Back. The Storm Front Towered Above Them And The Wind Was Cool On Their Sweating Faces. They Slumped Bleary-eyed In Their Saddles And Looked At One Another. Shrouded In The Black Thunderheads The Distant Lightning Glowed Mutely Like Welding Seen Through Foundry Smoke. As If Repairs Were Under Way At Some Flawed Place N The Iron Dark Of The World.

In The Nights Sometimes Now He'd Wake In The Back And Freezing Waste Out Of Softly Colored Worlds Of Human Love, The Songs Of Birds, The Sun.