Page 46 - Contrast1984v26

A DAY TOO STILL

A paper-thin day waits to be torn
by a forgotten wind

or the hacking cough of dying streets.
Air is scarce, and the city stifles
the gasps of death for fear another breath
won't come.

Rags cling to bent men and stairwells.
like withered sails and rigging
on broken masts.

The gaunt men, the vacant men,
shadow-like they cling to doorways

Men suffocate for want of wind.

They listen for tumbling newspapers
or tin cans clatter in the streets,
the rustle of Spirit through alleys,
the breath of God blowing life
into dried bones and dust.

Men fear the wind.

The tattered sails of ancient rigging
may not bear the gale.
The wind will either rip them
as the skin from a man's bones
or raise them round and full.

A voice cries in the street.
A voice echoes from the hollow frame

of a prophet crying against the stillness,
scraping against the day like the heels
of a corpse dragging across a street.

This is the moment before the wind.
It blows in unexpected hours,

lifting heavy sails like slender veils,
gusting toward the sUdden rip
of time-worn curtains.

~ Spence