The Garden of Ashes

This life of suffocation has me worried…that there is an eternal epilogue. Or rebirth. Is the fact that I now consciously experience myself through reason and the senses mean this is the last incarnation? Is Déjà vu memories of moments I lived differently?

I wish I could remove my mind,
And, in doing so, cleanse
Myself of all I am
In my spiritual hemorrhage.
Nobody changes; least of all one such as I…
I will blossom into a kiss of poison.
And I fear there is another shore
That waits beyond the rain-swept veil
Of the sacrifice inflicted by the soul unto itself.
Have I been that sacrifice in the past?
Is this the Hell that waited for my hand?
In dying, do we simply continue—
Gone from the Plateau and now living in the mirror
In the depths befogged by unrest?

There is frost upon the sun we share.
The stars are dew in this garden of ashes
Where I hope one day to sleep…to sleep...
To bleed as I have bled before
With blooms of stone upon my cairn.
But is this the end? Or will I wake
As I guide my hand in parting?
In what inferno of life
Will I draw breath?

© 2021 Marten Hoyle