They do not care about the volumes
Of dead words that they left behind,
As hard as it is for us, who follow
Their every arc of prayer, to believe.
These words that no one heard
Were more in need of preservation
Than the cries that vied for the silence
Of the heights, and the leaves that fell
The moment they were no longer needed;
Still we've served them so completely
We feel we've let them down, betrayed them even.
The phrases we thought would raise us
Were someone else's cast off feathers of ash,
In repeating patterns, like every lesson
We should have learned as naturally as breath,
Some glistening of what is left of the sun,
Not real somehow, although it seems the only
Thing we see we have not darkened.
Thus this urge we have, to replace the windy space
We pause so restlessly against
With something else, less great than us,
For it was left behind.
