In That We Remain by Mackinley Clevinger, April 16, 2016
In and out it flashes by
Memories lived and lost in time
Where they drop nobody knows
The long walked path paved in prose
Calling for the life forgotten
Against the truth, another begotten
This second life exists somewhere
A missing tale hidden there
Within the space behind our eyes
Left behind but at our side
To recall one day to some surprise
When memories, we thought, had long since died
Perhaps a time when we were sad
What stories have we left to rot
While we fear what time we’ve got
Set forth along a future bumbling
No care for a past, long since crumbling
What use is worrying of future life
When all ahead is growing strife
We learn our history lest it repeat
And yet in our remembrance, we find ourselves beat
In this moment our existence stands
But once passed by it scatters as sand
Do you know all that you’ve done
What tales and stories will never be sung
Teachings and lessons, lost to the wind
Take life in hand, and toss in the bin
It’s ours to keep, a gift bittersweet
But tasked to recall, we find ourselves beat
Years of our lives, and not but a trace
Remembrance is not a task to us based
An imprint left in something that rots
Gone sooner than in all that does not
One day we’ll be gone, nothing to our name
But a world that remembers, in that we remain