Denial

At dawn stars tumble
              from the black sky
leaving us with a single
              champion to cast light
into the whispering abyss

The wind and birdsong
              send conflicting messages
as consciousness struggles
              with the challenges of the day

A heavy bombardment
              of thoughts and feelings
assails the mind and competes
              for the old territory
the battle-torn stamping ground
              of empty conquest

 Here the fears and the hopes
              the unseemly obsessions
refuse to form a line and so
              overrun the inadequate
undisciplined mind
              that simply knows no better

In our absence the spider
              has constructed its web
it is a thing of beauty
              a causeway that farms the air
tougher and yet more gentle
              than any iron or steel
an emblem of self-sufficiency

We in turn
              set about reconstructing
our terrible systems of belief
              the day reassembled
piecemeal
              until once again
it resembles pretty much
              the one that went before
like all our days
              the vast custom concatenation
of segments that alienate us
              from who or what
we are supposed to be

Night knits the rose
              the day unravels it
its brief beauty
              perishing in the midst
of our unflagging denials

John Lyons