Another winter bulb for Time Flowers:

6

 
Evening shades of gray, the crowded rooftops,
shambles of February snow, sticks, leaves.
He moves more slowly now, the ground receives
men every day like him (old Pops,

 
old Everyman).  The earth wheels onward
in the usual way, light and darkness
slope through coils of passion and distress
(only a dream someone was having, lured

 
toward lucre or the sword, some fluffy
rotating wrestler's bed, lit by the glare
of expensive underwear).  Someone familiar
was in the mirror - his tubby, puffy

 
doppelganger, stuffed tight and masked
for Mardi Gras; while over his shoulder
Prince Charming, Atlas, Orpheus, Baldur
- some younger self - shouldered his task:

 
hefting the planet toward a purling spring
(pure water, washing the dust away,
purging desolate grief from every eye).
Everyman remembers everything.