History

At what point exactly

does History grayscale?

As it undoes itself ( not

the way my grandpa

rolls out a yarn, thread by thread )

on reflective glass:

leaf by leaf, drained of 

colour, traversing ochre twilight

at dusk between

stars, who

with celestial impatience

wedge the moon to its edge and

after an eternity really

in a prelapsarian longing

centuries anachronistically 

dim into one place

by the clatter of chains—

held fast by the hands of time.

The dawn descends upon

us in a frenzied calm

when the zephyr turns to stone

by canopies of silent birdsong:

to behold lilacs

blooming in cold blood

and then… silence

chiselled onto our hearts

like worms

that eat apples, raw.

We see ghosts

emerging from their ruins

in the womb of the earth

as if out of thin air

concealing memories in shards

lost in time's lullaby to 

a nightmarish silence,

stunned to oblivion,

tongues cut in half 

to ask the promised questions:

“Who would awaken us to life,

if not for rain?”

“Where is he, in whose hands

rests our fate,

like a child, asleep?”

They can barely whisper

of death

staring into their faces 

like a stoic grim reaper,

of bleak shadows and desiccated dreams

like Quinces decayed in clusters.