Freedom abandoned years and years ago
Choosing to be your wife-partner for life
Packed suitcase with that which fit, but didn’t know
Some baggage slipped along just to add strife
Left behind schooling, leisure but didn't understand
Some might be needed including my ego
Days I wanted to dance but barely could stand
Unlike childhood dancing, believed in credo
The engagement ring a beauty, wedding ring plain
Home wedding, then our future lay before
Where dreams played a different life refrain
Brides can't drop who they are, forget past store
Memories, character blends have to take place
'Til she becomes a person God filled with grace...
Invisible, yet strong like iron bars,
the conceptions, which I regard as sure,
as if they were recorded in the stars,
are like a prison which I must endure.
My identity, blindly adopted,
as a life sentence passed down by a judge
leaves me without choices to be opted,
inside four walls where I can't even budge.
Yet, today, I announce my prison break,
as I leave my predefined self behind.
To new possibilities, I awake.
It's in this moment, I decide my mind.
I will choose what I’ll do and be today,
and what tomorrow brings, I cannot say.
A person leaves a memory,
a voice still breathing in an empty room;
a parent leaves a child's hand to hold
the wisdom gathered through a lifetime's bloom.
A lover leaves an absence at the door,
a chair untouched, a silence in the bed;
and words survive in letters, photographs,
small objects keeping what the heart once said.
Some leave a scar where tenderness once lay,
some leave a wound that time cannot erase;
some leave a garden, a house, a tree—
a changed and quiet place that bears their trace.
A life leaves footprints even after death,
a legacy written in another's days;
yet we abandon dreams we cannot carry,
and leave behind the selves we once displayed.
We cannot take our possessions into night,
nor carry earth's green forests when we go;
humanity leaves its shadow on the planet—
a wound, a wonder, and a debt we owe.
And long after memory has lost our name,
when even our last photograph is gone,
somewhere, somehow, because we once were here,
the darkness will be different from the dawn.
After years of efforts and struggles
human beings have been able to
unfold the secrets of nature
treasured beneath the soil
in the deep oceans,underneath hill slopes
and in mountain peaks.
Only a few with dedication and determination
could reach the goal.
Penetrating through the challenges, posed by nature
efforts meet success and what is accomplished
is the mark of humanity on Earth.
The inventions give a reason for the existence
and happenings of certain phenomena on Earth.
The great personalities leave behind
a zeal to move on,a hope for existence.
What is left behind, is always an inspiration
for the generations to arrive.
The greatest mark of humanity on Earth
is the discovery of what is present,
yet unknown for centuries...
Great personalities are remembered
even after centuries, for their great contributions to mankind...
autumn shakes trees threadbare
spent leaves loosen from brittle stems
each clinging to its bough
waiting for the pluck of the wind
to uncover what waits in their axils
one leaf lies pressed flat
between pages seldom turned
sheltered from rain and light
its veins mirror buried roots
grounded in what it remembers
wine stains the glass
one mouthful remains untouched
thirst lingers at the rim
its sweetness deepens in restraint
the poised tongue, tastes what it has left behind
on dust-laden shelves
books keep mementos between well-thumbed pages
dog-eared by the aftermath
where spines remember the press of hands
finding places spent years forget
as leaf settles on leaf
each layer buries another
last laid, first recalled
the gathered stack of a life
waiting for the scurry of a wanton wind
neither dusk nor dawn
can deceive me about the leaves
I shed, keep, forgo, forget,
give away, hold back—
each leaf, a page I can't keep.
Time meets no resistance -
no grand display
or hustle ~
Guffaw from the potter's field
Written: October 04, 2026, as A sample for the contest What we leave Behind.
We do not leave our footsteps to the earth;
the rain unthreads them, reed by reed, from stone.
Nor does the house remember what we were—
its walls absorb our voices, then grow lone.
We leave the warmth that lingered in a chair,
a photograph grown silver at the seam,
the scent of roses suspended in the air,
a half-remembered cadence in a dream.
We leave the words we uttered without care,
the wound they opened, and the scar that stayed;
the kindness no one witnessed anywhere,
the small reprieve a stranger’s grief was paid.
We leave ourselves in those who knew our name:
a gesture, an expression, a way of seeing;
some ember smouldering beneath the ash of time,
some unanswered question still becoming.
Perhaps our truest legacy is not what lasts,
but what, once touched by us, is changed—
a life made gentler, briefly, by our passing;
a darkness that remembers it was light.
A curled pink nail,
tap on navy blue,
garment I wore,
benchmark blazer,
and matching pants,
whilst idly gazing,
at top shelf luxuries,
with lavish design,
a tinctured twang,
“beyond my grasp,”
that felicitous plead,
from ethereal elder,
whose finger points,
to green leaf motif,
breakfast tea box,
tucked between,
medley of brands,
behind shelf label,
“your lofty stature,”
“towering boon,”
her citrine whisper,
my wobbly lurch,
I self adjust now,
before the setting,
of caffeine boost,
in basket mesh,
hug swops usher,
vanishing in lane
Left behind like the wind
May be not too far away
left behind like the wind
Like the moon light shadows me
Everywhere I go
There is a piece of agony
That follows me
Left behind like the wind
A stream that rushes in my body
Not knowing what to do
Fireflies dance in my head
yet no light in my mind
Left behind like the wind
Where the stone is stuck deep inside
Even a single leaf so still, not to move
as the leaf of life sleeps upon my lips
Left behind like the wind
You came into my life
like a hunger I never knew I had,
and somehow
I began craving something
I could never have.
There was something beautiful
about the danger in you,
something I knew
I should stay away from,
yet still found myself
walking closer.
Maybe I saw myself in you.
The darkness,
the loneliness,
the parts we keep hidden
behind a smile.
You were never mine,
but somehow
you left pieces of yourself
inside me.
And now I wonder—
was I drawn to you
because you were different,
or because you carried
the same emptiness
I had been trying to hide?
Maybe some people
are not meant to stay.
Maybe they're only meant
to awaken something in us,
then leave us
to deal with the hunger
they created.
And if that's what you were—
I still don't regret
meeting you.
She greets us with her warm smile,
won't hesitate to go the extra mile.
Genuine, she always has a kind word,
she's sweet as a songbird.
No one would ever know
she lost her son two weeks ago.
The hallways buzz, the clock ticks slow, There’s something real you ought to know. Forget the past, the family tree, This isn't about history.
Beyond the grades, the age, the noise, Above the usual crowd of boys, It’s you I notice, clear and true, I just needed you to know I like you.
When I consider what’s behind…
Was I gracious? Was I kind?
I pray my children came to know
how very much…I loved them so.
And to my wife did I give praise,
when she felt low…her spirits raise?
Did I help folks along life’s way
find peace and truth…urge them to pray?
And after I have gone ahead,
God’s plan for me, what will be said?
but that I strove, the world to show,
that Jesus, all, should come to know.
Now near the end of earthly time,
and soon I’ll have to leave this space,
and place myself in God’s good grace.
Lord. Let them know, they’re on my mind.
-Then at my wake-
And now that I am good and gone,
will they remember me for long?
Will they lift a glass…sing a song,
and wish I still could join along?
Sail away with me, my darling, to distant lands
leave the past behind us while we still can
Dare it to catch us, ever onward sail
this small vessel ~ our everlasting jail
It is raining outside! I gaze at the photograph
of my mother!... a young child!... playing in the rain!
Her long, jet-black hair is dripping
onto her dress!... the embroidered flowers are drinking it in.
Barefoot in that captured moment of running—
one foot touches the earth on tiptoe,
the other is in the air!... she balances there, carefree.
Her small hands, like tender tree shoots—
one reaches forward as if following someone,
the other trails behind as if beckoning someone.
The sun shines upon her rosy cheeks;
stars and the moon swim within her eyes.
Outside, the rain has stopped! Through the windowpane
I see blooming flowers dancing in the breeze,
I hear the rustling of trees,
I see the sun’s rose at dusk, at dawn,
and night’s soft, ebony scarf
embroidered with stars and the moon;
I see my mother!... out there!... calling to me!
Through the windowpane… the rain is dripping!
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