We don’t make the fundamental promise,
we learn it. We pause.
When Time arrives to collect,
I'll keep my word;
I'll be a man who
won an immortal honour
from mortality.
The promised Dark is not my paralytic,
but its prodigal companion, Silence.
When life has burned to embers,
burned bright and spent,
I may have to proffer my recompense to nothing.
I may have done nothing;
my echo may demur with the light,
its verity falling into desuetude.
My voice may find asylum
in the argument of Ghosts.
These are the words of the clock
as I hunch over a desk,
working furious
against the possible silence.
The dark is promised.
Silence is not.