The memory of your face

Grows pale with age

Feint in the darkness

Of the closets of my mind

The clock ticks and tocks

And time tolls and tells all

The wrinkles of time

Crease my worried forehead

Like a crinkled piece of paper

As my eyes strain to see again

What you looked like

And my ears to recall

The sounds of your voice

And remember

Your quirks

Funny smiles

And simple

Childish comedy

So hard it is to keep alive

These many dreams

Of yesterday

And our yester-year

Once spent 

Together

Letting go

The clinging of old clothes

And unpaired socks

Of odd things gotten

Once used and misbegotten

Then in drawers and broken boxes

 Old and forgotten

Half-empty spaces

Little traces of nameless things

Where daylight rarely

Reveals 

What's mislaid

Deep inside

The anonymous contents

Toy belongings

Of small 

Lost ghosts and goblins

Higglety-pigglety

Strewn all roundabout

I reach out 

To touch you 

In the night

I find an empty hand

Hidden from the light

I dream 

A restless dream

A relentless, falling stream

A lost city

Teaming 

Tiny creatures

Like insects

Once we all were

Hapless and helpless

We flitted and flirted

Fecklessly, recklessly

With empty eternity

Never knowing well

Our true fate

Or final destiny

So many faces

Locked away

So many lives

Lost inside

Recurring dreams

In darkness

And shadow

Soon

Too soon

And yet not so very soon

I shall follow

Into the void

Through all the empty

Spaces and lost places

Of your last wake

Where you lead the way

We will all

Venture some day

Seasons

Odd Ends: Perennial Poesy along the Way

2005