Summer comes

Summer has arrived, suddenly -
surprise-visitor - in cool soft air
and evening sun, you can feel
the people relax behind their flat
windows and the cars are stilled
as dust rises and there is no
air to push tree leaves into
movement.

Summer in the evening air and I
am alone here - all the voices
do not even echo down the
years, silence rises in my place
as I sit and feel.

Lights come on in golds and
reds as the sunset rises and
the sky dims to magenta,
purple blue green navy -

there are no carefree days, they
are too full, too heavy to be
made of smiles and laughter,
shoulder-shrugs -

I am the one who lived on after
as summer comes
and there is no-one left
to share it with.  I am the
last human, the last survivor
of holocaust, standing alone

on the evening shore
as the gentle waves lap the
sand and the sea stretches
flat to distance and sky -

I am the last survivor, drinking
in the beauty of a new
summer before I pass by
footsteps fade as the dark rises
and nightfall like a familiar
tune played out over space
and endless generation
is left alone to itself
as if we had never been.

Even summer dies to autumn
winds, the fools of heart and
hands useless against overwhelming
tides.

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