mortal landscape / drama king

Fall
The leaves drop gingerly
from their towering trees, at the capricious
mercy of Autumn's breeze

Cold
It works its way to the bone
The universe steals our speed,
seizing it in her icy grip
only to give it away again

But by what means of discernment
should she choose whose to take?
Perhaps the swaddled babe, yowling and howling
in ardent wake, or the ancient patriarch,
whose breath is brimmed with age and aches?
Nay, neither pawn nor king might persuade their escape;
neither bastard nor saint; Yea, none can be saved
from Mors's mighty hand, smoothing out
the senseless creases of our fitful fates,
easily leveling the majestic ridges and valleys
of this mortal landscape

---

Did the wind weep, the day King David died
or did it flee from his side, eager to court
the next royal claimant to rise?
Unaffected by such quotidian succession,
seeing the seasons wax and wane -
the only changes occurring truly
are of their faces and their names
and possibly occupation -
ephemeral ornamentations on an eternal plane,
repeating themselves over and over again,
always the same productions played
on this finite spherical stage