Wings of Tomorrow

Gazing at the pool of sky,

a sea of life swarming in light and shadows of this abysmal existence
like an old friend -
beckons me to contemplate myself.
The shades of sun saturated by autumn leaves
cascading inevitably downward,
down into the earth to mold and rot
and inspire.
My life would not be without the eons of fall and death
unraveled and trampled on by roads traveled long before I stood here
to wonder at them.
I would have no lines to write if ghosts had not buried them in books and echoed them

from generation to generation.

I see people whose names I knew too briefly
shuffle by in crowded hallways -
onward at the pace of modern life
onward, onward hasten to the next destination!
To the stock market sirens and reality TV show alarm clocks -

But do not stop to smile at the breeze,
it takes too long to kiss your frowning faces.

Modern hell is the forsaken dreamer.
Ashes now his vague wild-eyed ramblings of eager childhood,
blackened by the soot of expectation.
I too often found myself enraptured by the sneer of restless anger:
disgusted at the applaud aroused by the duty driven day,
I sink into myself and cultivate the pointing finger -
defining and confining -
becoming more oblivious of myself
than the burning flame of my affliction:
the ease of blame.
That seductive, self-destructive addiction.

But still -
now and then -
unease eases me
like the ceaseless ebb and flow
of the ocean;
Always through this hazy life
my thoughts and mind's in motion.

Time slithers on in incalculable distances.
It has gone from there to here and will go still further
with aught a wink or pause for breath.
Knowing this, I sometimes feel
I may as well be dreaming in this slip-slide life,
as all I lay claim to sinks into the oblivion
of Memory.
And time will still slither on unaware.

And what of memory? What of the souls that harbor them?

My grandmother would sit studying cardinals and blue jays
while she wove tapestries of lived life to bundle me up in
Binoculars and black and white photographs adorned her shelves
as an ode to the ineffable nature of winged singers and lost loves
I danced in her words as they lingered over shadows of experience
in her eyes the memories would linger there still
like a swing set still singing in an orange afternoon
Solemn and sweet

I can still smell her perfume

Gravestones are no more people than memories are life.
So where do souls go when blood slowly turns cold?
When last breaths float away into the atmosphere,
and warm hands that fondled air and flesh

as gracefully as ripples gliding across a misty shore
fall still to a forgotten future?

Some say reasons dictate the ticking clock -
the masterpiece divine, the space between the infinite drawn in lines by sublime foresight.
Scriptures of dead men are lying at my doorstep,
but still I struggle to find my own direction,
believing in the unknown, random foresight of the choices laid blindly out before me.
I am treading in the transitive,
awash in a mirage of past and future footprints
that always, always form anew the shore

All my days, my thoughts, my hopes, my choices
will sleep a dreamless sleep in the memory of times oblivion,
and perhaps, in time, my echo too
will float upon the wings of tomorrow