Planting the canvas

clawing away death
of a season best served sold
what had died in faded
gold, insulation from the cold

digging into a blank soiled canvas
where writhes the production
of new buried in layered
pages of bygone life

blades dig deep
as talons scratch surfaces
left bare in between
islands of promise green

and the pages flip
back and forth in the tome
soon a tomb where
the unseen follower revels
in a grassy facade

or perhaps futures have
slowed their pace instead
and rabbit steps bound
in a second layer of a
summer not yet burned

roots coil within
what flowers are and
will slither out into what
leaves and stems have become

soiled canvas lays
stark and still yet stirs under
sepia, taupe, withered gray
shiny white and yellow
drawn to bleed green
and speckled hues