It comes in many forms and hues
And many, many ways.
It lights the hallways and the pews
And puts a number on your days.
In cloaks of ranch-born tangerine
or rugged desert redstone.
Or sweet crowns of daffodil cream
that may have once sparked and shone.
It comes by march, it comes by hush,
sometimes it leads, or follows suit.
It comes in frenzy, tide, and rush.
Permission? No. It blooms like fruit.
Some try to fight it, try to quell
the unstructured, pleasant reign.
When it rose, the people fell.
And it had the people slain.
It leaves a path for soft Decay
To tread upon with thorny feet.
It shows her, smilingly, the way
To churches, castles, fields of wheat.
It invites in the Carrion
And bows to their blue-black-kings.
It opens to them a beyond
Of tender, broken buildings.
It beckons to the sprightly twins
Of Plague and Disease, saying,
"Your old friend Fire always wins,"
And with one of Fire's sickly grins,
"A ground just for your playing!"
