Ephemeral ghosts,
Wraithlike beneath the moon,
Hands reaching, reaching for the sky,
Eyes painful, pleading on the clouds
Which drown the lands below in rain;
They lived so fleetingly, quicksilver.

Around them, the world turns to quicksilver,
A current exempting only ghosts;
They stand apart, untouched by even rain,
These dead who are judged before the moon—
A looking-glass concealed by clouds
But the wraiths no longer see the sky.

Beneath that dark, redeeming sky,
Lives and hearts both change like quicksilver.
The eye that looks within now clouds,
Haunted by these long-forgotten ghosts
Who hide within the shadows of the moon,
Drifting across the world’s eyes and through the nightly rain.

Freezing, desolate drops of rain
Fall from the dark and overbearing sky
That wraps around the timid moon.
Fleeting, capricious, and quicksilver,
The rising wind sweeps by these tattered ghosts,
Carrying in the low and heavy clouds.

The world settles beneath the clouds,
Withdrawing from the solitary rain
And from the eerie presence of pale ghosts
Who haunt the land and mourn the covered sky,
Even though the swathing clouds, like life, are quicksilver,
And by night will part to show the burning moon.

They flit across a world devoid of sun or moon,
Only visible when light escapes the choking clouds
And glances off their forms like brilliant quicksilver.
These wraiths pass heedless of the rain,
Which falls from the lofty, haughty sky,
Dreaming of pain, humanity, and unmade ghosts.

As lonely as the moon after the rain,
They drift in a quicksilver sky,
Wishing to be clouds or wind—anything but ghosts.