12th June 2020

Dear sweet Lorelai
Beloved daughter and mother
Papilio fragilis of the dusk
Forgive this muse his reticence
To divulge a vision dark and dismal
In answer to your question simply plied.
 
In truth it was a lack of courage
Not your naïveté that stilled my tongue 
Dried and painfully swollen
Strangely uncommunicative
Odd enough to give me pause
To wonder with deep foreboding.

Omission is the fault we must confess
Beg on bended knee in pained contrition 
The future deserving better at the hand 
Of we accepting constant mediocrity
Denying any hope for those who suffer
Time after time, bloody day upon day. 

My dearest darling girl
Glinting bright amidst bedazzled sky
Never fear your future path
Along with other guiltless souls 
 Innocent of any act of disconnect
With ugly trees bearing unnatural fruit.

Mine own path is deeper far and darker 
Than any you might be obliged to tread 
Reflections of my past
In ever expanding mirrors 
Showing deeds that whilst unwitting
Are still painfully persuasive.

I know the past 
I have seen the future 
Experienced the present 
And in their unity they choke
Wilt the foliage
Desiccate the stem and branch
A never-ending continuance
Of unbreakable tarnished chain 
That must continuedly constrict
Till cocks last crow.

Towards the end of his time
A man cannot escape destiny
Avoid the poison from the bloom 
Whose seeds he so carelessly scattered.

I have read the leaves 
Cast the stones 
Dealt the deck
Burned fresh offerings
And with my silence contrived
To allow the outcome.

The die was cast long ago 
In a game centuries old
Played with oft unwilling
Or unknowing lives
Trapped like desperate rats
Within a cruelly unyielding cage
A prison so cunningly comprised
Of broken and forgotten promises.