Flor de la Canela (The Cinnamon Flower)

All the Roses | In the Dark | Night Tremens

The Silent Din

© Carl Hathwell

Time is on the wing.
It flutters past
in a predatory glide,
unseen, unheard,
to vanish,
never having struck,
in the silent roar
of the darkness close behind.

And yet at times
as I move idly through the house,
I feel a feather-light brush
across my cheek
and hear a flapping
so hushed, so muffled,
it could be fashioned by a ghost.

Like gnomons fixed upon a dial,
we watch our days turn to night,
present into future into past,
burning ourselves out
in the cooling heat
of numbed resistance.