Wiedersehen

In a caliginous haze, soft as winter mist,

the cry of a thylacine rises through the trees—

a ghostly wail, long gone but still stirring,

echoing over hills that know her no longer.

The forest is still, save for whispers,

believers' murmurs hanging in the air,

of a world slipping away, of shadows departing.

The quiet is a sign, some say, of separation itself:

this undoing of old things into echoes and winds.

Along the damp riverbanks, bones rest cold

beneath the weight of time,

silent underfoot in the pulse of dark soil,

their shapes blurred but long-staring,

waiting for the day when nothing remains.

A flash in the woods, a pang of memory—

there’s no farewell, only the sense of wiedersehen,

a half-formed thought, that one day we will

meet again in some untouched dusk,

where silence and song are all that’s left.