Time is no godmother of mine,
nor any real comfort as night falls
into barrels of smoked nothingness
and all I have to show for myself
is a thin yarn and a broken tale
rolling off into the murky distance.

I stand by the eastern drums
at the turn of a cold day.
All languages faces me
and all forms of expression
confronts my hiding away,
my heavy footsteps into the known.

No wager can live up to
the present and its needs,
no fool but I can persist
in the chase of pure water
and land no war has soiled.
It is time to go.