[Erik Olson]

These are tough acts to follow, no doubt. Yet I fancy this Kyrielle is sufficiently dark anyway.

Birds cease to fly, dark has begun
that waits no more for any sun,
that wrests warm life from fingertip:
Death, with his finger to his lip.

The dark world where the race shall die
leers in at windows, turning spy,
hisses in shivering winds that nip.
Death, with his finger to his lip

mutes all the voice, benumbs the breath,
the wayfarer succumbs to death
upon the tail-end of the trip,
Death, with his finger to his lip.
s