SAM TUMBLIN

Beginning End

By Sam Tumblin

The hourglass cracked without a sound
Silver sands fell upside down
Seasons gathered in my hands
Then vanished like forgotten lands

A blackened rose climbed through stone
Blooming where the light had flown
Its petals spoke in silent tongues
Of broken clocks and hollow lungs

The ocean drank the dying sun
As if the day had come undone
Waves carried fragments of my name
Back to a shore that never changed

Above the trees, the ravens spun
Circles around a frozen one
A figure draped in tattered white
Holding embers against the night

I followed stairways made of smoke
Each step another promise broke
Doors appeared then turned to ash
Like memories that fade too fast

Yet in the ruins ivy grew
Through shattered glass and splintered truths
Its roots embraced what time erased
And carved new shadows into place

Perhaps the end was never death
But winter borrowing spring’s last breath
A serpent shedding ancient skin
To let another world begin

And somewhere far beneath the rain
Beyond the sorrow and the stain
A lantern flickered faint and dim
Still burning at the edge within