Apparition in the Woodlands at Dusk

Alone on the riverbank The water cool and clean and swift Black waters and rapid current A tenuous communion I cannot name I have to believe that pain is the teacher Unable to envision even the barest physical certainties of the death of myself or those close to me Living with constant pain Sharp and thin like a needle The haze of the forest in early November An echo from the ageless hills The quiet country of the past where weeping is hushed and marches are ended An apparition in the woodlands at dusk Touching in thin rooms at dawn's low light Imprisoned in the subjectivity of my memory What else can there be? Drunkenness and some vague lonely nostalgia for something dead long before my birth I have to believe that pain is the teacher