Hourglass by John Valentine

Black Widows surging on the shed door.

New-born

But already deadly, the mother sending them

To warn

The world. So many coded messages:

The final fall

Of azaleas, a rigid deer by the road, darkness

In a dying face.

Living life in the sun, you forget

The shadows. The years.

Inexorability of the clock. There,

In the grass, time

Moving. The scatter, relentless.

The very hourglass

Itself.



John Valentine lives and works in Savannah, GA.