The Sound of Footsteps

At night when the world sleeps I hear the footsteps of people Who walked with me for years. With time they all drifted away far I don’t know where nor do I care They wouldn’t know I don’t want to see them either For I turned a new page Filled with new faces I adore Some smiling , some sad For I took a new road I swept it clean of the dry leaves That carried images of the crumpling faces Now lying in heaps on the road I left They lost the address of the tree they came from I fixed a new price for my life worth its value The people who disappeared didn’t understand Or couldn’t pay the price and moved away. At night when the world sleeps I hear the footsteps of people Who walked with me for years. I have travelled a long way And reached now a green pasture Lined with trees I planted Where I lie on a bed of flower Bathed by the new sun I discovered The distant faces have gone pale Because they can’t come under my sun And have become contourless shadows Their faces indistinct in the dark past But in opaque moonless nights When solitude hangs like a heavy mist Spreading a veil of haze on everything In the present and in the past The featureless faces come alive And the shadows walk On the road I long left But I hear their footsteps As closely as I want to hear For they carry the echo of my distant footsteps Treading in the past to oblivion I want them to come back With their sound to break the loneliness For me to build with the pieces A bridge between now and then Between what I have and what I lost Between what I am and what I was.