Autumn flower, in this remiss hour, sunset lingers, persevering!
Bonny countenance, that dost almost entice winter to spare her frost!
Winter whispers in the brisk November air that we, as dry leaves, shall drift away –
Our longing for purpose lost to the tides of eternity, turned to dust in the firmament!
Shall the fires of our love linger long, as a magnum opus of empty infinity?
Autumn eve, when summer hues are but shadows of remembrance,
Where is the treasure of my life, the jewel of my ultimate yearning?
Were my existence condensed into one brief breath of truth, I would wish to aspirate crisp clarity,
to taste the understanding of mortality, though on the lips of impending death.
Would eternal persistence in cosmic chaos avail a greater measure of perception?
If I had but one more day to live, I would spend it not in grief, nor rancor for my haggard estate,
But search for measure in my pith – wisdom that my strife was not in vain.
Sometimes forever never comes, though we endeavor to see it through.
~ Daniel F Mitchell