Shell of Forgotten Dreams

And how are you today
Beyond the formlessness of ash
Spewed by the volcano
That consumed your last vestiges?

Countless moons and thirty suns ago
I walked you to your final temple
But you did not buy the hallowed book
And turned your back on time

Ancient rituals already behind you
Like car headlights
In the encroaching eternal night
That closed your final days

Were you true to your childhood dreams
Or did you wrap unfulfilled promises
Hand out life’s unfinished gifts
Not as ends but as beginnings?

In whose home did it all begin?
Like a hermit crab of posterity
Was it me who chose to inhabit
The shell of your forgotten dreams?

I join you in the nameless river
That collects our mortal hopes
Carries them through currents of time
Washing them out on eternity’s shores

There you will be reborn
My turn to spark life into you
We will walk those bone white beaches
And swim that mothering sea

Together, we will gaze at the stars
And time will stand still
And nothing will move
And silence will encompass us

We will look down at our shadows
Disappear on the sand
Like the imprints of lives
Washed away by infinity’s waves