The cold is creeping in now.
All that light and warmth
is being undone.
There is a distant fading drone of a motor;
it travels where we cannot go,
a place that will be painful to remember.

And so in this night,
with frost upon his shoes and the darkness weeping from his sores,
he has gone quiet.
I sip my drinks in silence,
save only for the cracks of melting ice,
and I do not move to knock upon his door
to ask
what is dying
or has died?

For me it is enough to contend with the changing of the season.

I do know the cut of his steps
the weight of his footfall.
I recognise that lack
and the silence I have heard too many times before.
He's going down.
Dead leaves will follow and bury him.
He's going down.
Burned soil and the snap of fireworks will haunt him.

But I am no useful friend.
I've been where he is going.
I have no help to give him.
It would be the blind leading the blind.
If anything,
his trouble brings an aching to my head
and poisons my cup.
It makes me scream for California,
or some small island in Indonesia.
I'll even take the danger pay
to get away from this:
witnessing the Autumn claim his love.

If it was ever love,
and if he'd ever know.

Perhaps, at the end of the day,
all I can offer is a drink and a song.
For him,
I know this will not be enough.
Not this time.