Landscape with Ruins and Fire

 Landscape With Ruins And Fire

When you are very old

and things are so very gone,

will you wish you had

held my hand,

will you remember

you never said my name

without lying

or looked in my eyes

while not speaking it?

When you're very old

wrapping yourself in the ruins

near the next Ice Age

with no one to draw magic

on cave walls  to call up your meals,

as you eat the dry harvests of ghosts

will you make yourself  an

ash shadow campfire

from our flame-scatter life,

or will you simply

find another

home to burn down

well to fill in

forest to level

for a flat plane

on which you may have

the exquisite comfort of

that last walk
alone.

~June 2013

posted for     real toads

Fireblossom Friday: Challenge: Loss

The incomparable Fireblossom, of Shay's Word Garden, asks us to write about "...the kind of loss that breaks your heart..."

Process Notes: The 'I' and 'You' in this poem are rhetorical devices and composites, and do not refer to any one specific person. Also, on a personal note, I'm having some problems adjusting to new medication, so please bear with me if I am slow in getting around to return visits. Should be temporary and should be back in shape very soon.

Header image: Landscape of Ruins and Fire, by Felix Valloton, 1914

Footer image: The Campfire, by Ambrose Bierstadt, circa 1860

Public Domain