The echo returns not

The mountains hum with the breath of time, A fleeting ripple across a vast, silent sea. We speak— Words fall like leaves, Carried by the wind of fleeting moments, Lost, As if they were never born. The echo is a phantom, A whisper in the depths of a cave, Unheard and unrecalled. It drifts like dust, Spinning in circles of light, But its form is never set, Its shape never fixed. In the stillness, we wait, For a voice, For a trace of our own thought, But nothing returns. Not the laughter, Not the pain, Not the promises once carved In stone that crumbles beneath the weight Of time’s indifferent march. We search for meaning, As if an answer lies in the shadows of repetition. But the echo is empty, It has no face, No soul to offer us, Only the reminder That what was spoken Is gone. Gone like the wind, Unseen, Unfelt, But never forgotten. Yet still, we ask— Will it return? But the truth lies in the silence, In the space between the notes, In the knowing that the echo Returns not, But we remain, Long after the sound has faded, Long after the world has moved on. And in that silence, We find ourselves.