Five: Death in the Spring

January 15, 2012 at 3:26 pm · Filed under Poems, Weird stuff ·Tagged author, Charles L. Mashburn, death, http://gooseberrygoespoetic.blogspot.com/2012/01/poetry-picnic-week-22-spring-colors.html, life, story, werewolves, wolf and moon, wolves, writer

I posted a series of four poems this past October titled The Change, and when going through my poems this morning I found a forgotten fifth in the series. You can read the first four parts by clicking on the links at the bottom of this one, the tragic final chapter in the story of a being—sometimes man, sometimes wolf—and a love that could never be. Enjoy!

Death in the Spring

 

The wolf lies on the meadow

     In cool spring shadow

         Beneath the hill

Breathing faint

     Eyes glazed

       Too still

 

The valley stretches empty

     Silence is all he hears

Then from a distance

          A scream from the hawk

               A faint movement

                  Curious twitching

                     Of ears

 

His eyes drift closed

        As from deep within

           Move the stirrings

                 Of one final change

A great tear from his eye

          Then a soft whimpering

               Past aged and yellowed fangs

 

As one last time

       The wolf becomes man

             There in the grass

                  All alone

His breathing is shallow

        As hide becomes skin

             ‘mid a moving

               Soft popping

                        Of bone

 

He drifts in and out

        Edging t’ward final rest

             He feels her presence

                            Above

                                On the hill

The last sound he hears

          Her mournful song

                 Of goodbye

                     She lopes away then

                         And forever

                                 He is still

 

Copyright © 1999 C. Mashburn

Part one – She Beckons Me Come

Part two – Yearning Heart

Part three – In Dreams

Part four – The Battle

Part five – Death in the Spring

 

Part five presented on Gooseberry Garden’s Poetry Picnic #22

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