my 50th summer

Each day the room resembles
a prison cell: walls built with rugged stones,
one pigeon hole window secured with iron bars.

You measure time by the changing forms
of shadows; you look through the iron rods
and realize the river has passed its prime,
slackened by a rising silt.

The river quietly takes it all: neither can it retrace
its path, nor can it revive the ebullience
that has gradually waned.

I observe the hollow of darkness:
my attenuated fantasies
loom like massive apparitions.

They collide with the bolted door.
I hear the sound of shackles.