\"Ritualize\"—it’s what I seem to do
when the prosaic day is through,
as I embrace the quiet night,
preparing once more for the write.
With pen, with paper, blackest ink,
I set out once more toward the brink—
to the margins where I hide,
where truth can never be denied.
I let the waiting quill now play,
and pen the words I dare to say,
taking my own poetic time,
immersed again in steady rhyme.
Recalling where my steps have been,
each fleeting virtue, every sin—
a pilgrimage of light and shade,
through years in which my tresses grayed.
Now I find myself just here,
with one lone, joyful, falling tear,
as I near the quiet end—
where the path no longer bends.