Cruel Comedy

The campfire collapses into a plaintive rune,
echoing the plangent wolf call of a loon
that floats the silver pathway of the water-jellied moon.

I face our final parting. As I hear its taunting croon,
the humid night surrounds me in its tight cocoon.
Life is a cruel comedy whose laughter ebbs too soon.

This is the NaPoWriMo prompt for April 5:

Begin by reading Charles Simic’s poem “The Melon.” It would be easy to call the poem dark, but as they say, if you didn’t have darkness, you wouldn’t know what light is. Or vice versa. The poem illuminates the juxtaposition between grief and joy, sorrow and reprieve. For today’s challenge, write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment – or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.

Happy writing!