Dust To Dust

He doesn’t remember 
his great grandfather
who passed away when he was five
He can’t recall the wooden heart 
he painted in a kaleidoscope of colors
that his father helped him to place 
carefully in the casket
His developing brain at some point 
over the past decade
determined the record of that day
and of the man himself 
he'd hugged before leaving the hospital 
when last he saw him alive
who had existed on this earth
for eighty one years 
to be dispensable
superfluous
It doesn’t matter who we are
mendicant or movie star
Someday no one will remain 
who retains memories of us 
It is not only our bodies 
that decay into dust
Copyright © | Year Posted 2022

Poem

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Leffanta Avatar
January 4, 2022 at 11:13 AM
Mental illness has been attributed to "haunting" memories of past lives lived, so it seems there really is no excape from being one's self . . . .
Ahmed Avatar
January 4, 2022 at 4:53 AM
Yes, I agree!
Ahmed Avatar
January 4, 2022 at 4:37 AM
Correct! at a certain point in time, down the road, memories will also vanish. Nicely written. But then again, not for the likes of Mozart, Einstein, Shakespeare, whose lives & works are immortally imprinted in the pages of history. and for the rest of us ordinary, we will indeed be completely erased.
Douglas Avatar
January 4, 2022 at 4:41 AM
Yes, we know their names, we know they existed, we know their work, or what has survived, but no one alive has memories of them, knows who they really were.
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