An ode to the lone grey hair at my temple

An ode to the lone grey hair at my temple

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Fledgling thread of time

spun silver

from the root of things

wiry spiller of secrets

betrayer of years

like a bad best friend

tucked tight behind my ear

whispering the future sweetly

as she creeps mycelium fingers

cross my skull

Celluloid filament

glowing her ghostly hue

faithfully printing and

storing reems of all the things

I’ve done, and been, and felt

and taken in

logging time for long enough

now to be twirled

around an index finger

as I play each moment back

Diligent projectionist she is

to catalog the memory

of each flash of wild abandon

inside this graphite spindle

at the corner of my mind

she builds upon herself forever

mixes mortar from each bite

every sip of sustenance I take

to sculpt a reliquary for the things

that once were here then gone

Ancient goddess of the temple

She sermons softly of the

summers past

of famine and of feast

of the way a lover held us once

and she reminds me that

as seconds, hours, seasons pass

my body still holds even him

somewhere within this

platinum locket of my making

And I resist the morse commands

sent down to tapping fingertips

to pluck her quietly from my sight

to bury these secrets under the skin

to toy with time

for I know she will forever

find her way back to this place now

loyal, luminous companion

her carbonic flash illuminates

the dark night of my mind

Returning from the future

with some metamorphic promise

that assures me change

is what it’s all about

reminds me of the way

we can reduce ourselves

to nothing and still

we reform from the ashen

crater of what was

both weaver and the weave

Reminds me we are all just

stardust apparating

and there is always more to come