The clock sweats rust; its hands forget to turn.
I touch the mantel where the years still burn.
What’s left is just a groove worn in the wood—
The mark of years I thought I understood.

The spider strings her web across the door.
I brush it down. She strings it back once more.
At dusk I lean against the frame, breathing thin—
Not knowing who will tire, or who will win.

The road my father walked is overgrown.
I follow what his feet wore in the stone.
The trail dissolves in thistle, thorn, and prayer—
I walk into the nothing. He’s still there.

We burned the letters when the house was sold.
Their ruin grayed and quietly turned cold.
Come spring, I swept it out across the beds—
Now something’s growing where the paper bled.

The roses blacken early every year.
I plant them anyway. I watch them sear.
To tend what dies before the frost arrives—
My hands keep moving; grief is what survives.

We come from dust and to the dust return.
I know this now. It took me years to learn.
And still I plant. And still I turn the earth.
I dig among the dead to give things birth.