Future bleeds like dawn
over the horizon of my pasts.
Morning invests, evening infests.
Equinoxes and solstices shine
behind my back, but that dark
solstice of the soul waits ahead.
I who sought mountain ranges
dwell now in prairie sameness.
The young impudent nature
of my Senator of old surrenders
to the scholar’s prudent virtues,
called contrition and consolation.
Praise changes to distaste
and extortion to admission,
as ambition transitions to extinction
and initiation evolves to tradition.
How hexed the previous,
but oh! how tedious the next.

– Duane Vorhees