Tage verlieren sich
Im Nichts der vergehenden Zeit
Wie einsames Herbstlaub
Days vanish in oblivion
In nowhere of the passing time
Like solitary autumn foliage
Días se caen en olvido
En la nada del tiempo pasando
Como hojas solitarias de otoño
What happens to our dreams?
They seem to discolor;
they shrivel
and fall wistfully into distant memory
like so many autumn leaves.
They seem to slip from grasp
and shatter painfully
as they hit the floor
like so many glasses before it.
When we grow,
our hearts become lost in the inferno.
They fry, dry out, turn crispy.
They become easily cracked, fragile.
They become useless, sterilized.
I watch my first hour teacher
as she preaches generalizations
of relationships we don't want.
She gives examples from her own life.
I watch and I see nothing.
She is dead from the inside out.
Her humanity is locked in dormancy.
She is a hollow shell with a voice box.
Sometimes I think
she should take a queue from Hemingway;
paint the walls with the back of her skull
and fragments of led-fused brain tissue.
When the dreams go,
so goes the heart,
so goes the soul,
so goes self-will,
so goes humanity.
Pry into the mind of a child.
Look around, soak it in.
See what we've all been missing.
If trees could speak, what would they say?
As they watch from day to day...
Would they give their thoughts away?
If blood coursed inside of them,
Through a heart, beating again and again...
Would they feel what's been done to them?
Would they talk of the many battles fought,
By men who only fortune sought...
And all of those who died for naught?
Would they speak of the homes they provide,
Across this earth so far and wide...
Wherein, God's creatures do abide?
Would they discuss the garments they wear?
Their Spring, Summer, and Autumn fare...
Or the white blanket of Winter's care?
Or would they only continue to stand,
With boughs gently swaying in the wind...
Silent Witnesses to a Greater Hand?
Amid fallen leaves from Autumns show,
Caught in a flickering fires glow,
Upon fatted moon of butter white,
Gazed ancient eyes on frosty night.
Blue, woaded face turned to the sky,
Heavens orb in ancients eye, drew warmth -
Yet not from fires glow,
But warmth of soul from moonish show.
And ancient eyes held long that stare,
Drew deep upon enchanted air,
Alone no more that autumn night
Brother of shadow, cast of heavens light.
When came the dawn to frosted land
Where fires lay cold aside still hand,
And unseeing eyes lay on the ash,
Then earthern fingers took wanderlings back.
Yet, from the depths of that freeze
One ember flickered in dawning breeze,
And earth she yield, let go her grasp -
And gave her sister her ancient back.
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