Gone Dark

Not so ominous, the future
When I perch on a stony shore
By the side of the Slocan Lake
Well past my expiration date

And wonder how I made it here,
Another year, another spin
And another, twenty thousand
Nearly now since first I gasped breath.

Who sits in fine weather in May
At the intersection of light
And craving, the center of want
That wants for nothing, nowhere else,

And thinks, "this too shall pass"? Shouldn't
We save the calm stoicism
For the fall and winter, gone dark
Afternoons when May lakes are myths?

I used to think I'd be gone now,
And now, perhaps, I really am,
But the passage of light across
Washed-up logs below Valhalla,

When I am alone and sunlit
And full of the spring behind me,
The cold, clear lake in front of me
Is not the dark I'd counted on.