a red scarf

I know that empty light
you see it in eyes where the life has left
returned to its frail beginnings

carried here some say by fallen stars
but its unimportant and common
now

I know of no-one to tell
of the playground anger we share
who has forbearance, the quality to lose

there are just too many of us
for this, the low light sputters its fuel
attached to its eternal finger

I know of an an idea that is useless, really
the source long plundered
its evocation, the smallest of breaths

inside of such prayers are the languishing truths of us
the meanest of intentions distilled
the purest dilution of our famous creation

i know of atoms cast out of figured eights
of furnace blasts, of sheets of thick black iron slag
hammered thin a thousand times

of the father and his pantomime, of the mother and her burdens
of the son who wonders of the spark,
who put it there

like any other story
he pulls the red sash from the hole inside him
it stretches out forever
could it ever end