By the Time You Read This

By the time you read this
I'll be on my way to that quiet place.
I'll be milled with faint webbing,
held upright by the paltry glaze
of stubs and grains, bits and pieces
of some granular secretions; lending
urge to purpose, filtering rage with wonder.
It seems a decade or more since the days
of the low position of the sun, rain
in spoons, the mere phantom of the piles
of artifacts all yellow and dusty.
Many of the shells of that time are still
strewn on the floor. Ice Lizards,
we called them, as they melted
between the floorboards, swelled and made
the wood creak when the wind blew; we slept
through that. Shocking what time does
as it peals away some limbs and replaces
the rough edges with a smoothness
that slithers away until you wake up
and say "What the fuck? That really happened?"
My life has been such a fast vehicle for tumbling.