Fading Away

The old woman like a prophet sat deep in the café.

I took a table with coffee cup and folded paper at my hand.

“It is fading away,” she said, her voice a gravel pit of age.

Nodding politely, I tapped my paper and gave a grin.

Across the way sat condiments of sweetener and cream.

I reached the pitcher and poured a stream from the lip

And watched the dark brown color fade away to mud.

Fade away like the sun, like the day, like the time

And the lady sat dissolving into the background dim,

While I read of war and crime and drug abuse

And slowly sipped away the liquid in my cup

As if sipping away the bloodlust and greed of life.

“It is fading away,” she said, this soothsayer behind.

“It is gone,” I replied and went for another café au lait.

The hours passed and daylight faded from where we sat.

The paper lay wrinkled, no jobs were certain found,

Just hopeful circled blips in the shrinking classified.

I stared at my hands and the fading circle from a ring.

The skin was spotted now; the palms are growing soft.

“It is fading away,” she said this seer of cosmic truth.

“The world we knew?” “No,” she sadly replied, “my sight.”

Photo: The Canal, Lewes, DE. Taken by the author, 2009