Old Songs

 

Old songs take on new weight
with the growing burden of memory.
The emotional climax built up around
songs we listened to back then
has taken on greater dimensions,
is increased in sheer intensity
by dreams distilled in bitter herbs.

Collected memorabilia of shadows
cast by fitful, flickering flames,
reminiscent relics of a receding past
give way to time's advancing specter.
These fragments of confused thought
shudder behind bright, piercing eyes,
recalling the chaos of a vain search
for a truth that doesn't exist.

In the jumble of images is a pattern
camouflaged like a chameleon,
taking the coloring of its surroundings.
From the stream of conscious vision
a current floods deep into oceans
of fantasies become real,
and imagination is a rampant beast
that knows no limit or restraint.

So little of this world will endure
beyond the crest of the next hill.
So much of the world's reality
is frozen in icy stagnation,
but hope flows with the rising tide.