In the black period
after each of our last sentences

a fog surrounds
what might be the end,

but when we look away
with equal distance, a buoy appears

as an urge to wander
down into the dead valley

in search of the pile
of lost firewood,

left by an old, mute
hermit as a sacrifice,

for those, caught
just like this,

each log stacked
for the perfect words,

brittle and hidden
for over two hundred years.