distilled

distilled

my being becoming bone, i move more slowly
with age, the unsure structure teeters
more often, creaking articulates
shuffling clumsy in pained remembrance
of supple and sleek and swift.

the white frame, readying to dust, ash.
draped in gaunt and paunch, but hearkening to
a centered rhythm, a knowing, a wisdom, a stillness.

that growing space of peace, that
groan of bone, grown
thin and wobbly, knobbed
ghostly crazed coruscate in veil of age
brittle, aching but truer in being
than heart, mind and blood
could ever speak.

the vessel within a form.
the embers of a fire yet to be snuffed.
edging ever nearer
to the body of a hard god.

© Luther Allen

. . . . .
previously published in Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington