I Can Only Reach The Black

Hope, the fire of pending morrows
Once burned soft but bright as day.
Now the merest flicker borrows
Time to sputter, waxing fey.

'Lo my canvas unappointed
Born to stretch the light itself
Now with monochrome anointed
Paler shades of former self.

Not the pall of charcoal dusting
Nor the grey of sidewalk crack
Color bled from life by trusting
I can only see the black.

Glamours die with wounded whispers,
Summoning like ringing vespers--

I can only reach the black.