blind man's ink

black night
wraps
shoulders up
bats
hints of amnesic wind song
finch
standing in dirt
whispering secrets
India ink spilled
across blind man’s shirt
anonymous monk
wandering
foggy-eyed
down the path
not blind yet
but soon
all of them lost and forgetting
men, insects, birds, bats
grey pillow stitches
stones rise toward twilit sky
sun
moon
stars
finch
standing in dirt
branches of birch
white
brush and beetle underfoot
damp
not this
blaze black night
not that
blind man’s water glass
bedside desolation
tundra of sleep
painted orange sky
orchard pink moon:
syrupy medicine
for the hermit
living under mushroom rot
and moss
singing to the finch
and one veiny-winged bat
sweet sonorous songs of sleep