Prints

As feet displace the grains,
A story do they tell,
Of sweetness, or of pains,
Of heaven or of hell.

Though our thunder rages,
The story is of chalk,
The stories, the places,
But traces whence we walk.

Our dreams, like specters fade,
With the chimes of the bells,
Grass blends where they have laid,
Our cold and empty shells.

And the marks we have set,
Amid the shifting sand,
A cold rush to forget,
Severs the silver strand.

Thus lost would be the prints,
And the trail would grow cold,
For what our lives have meant,
Would ever be untold.

But nothing that is loved,
Is lost to kin and place,
Naked, washed, and salved,
The ode retold in grace.

As feet displace the grains,
A story they do tell,
The echo does remain,
Beyond the last farewell.