Everything else
you can strip off
but memory
and the past--
both are surreptitious
your earthly days
they long over-last

the present is but
an unsettled midpoint
flanked by  moments
of yesteryears and the future
their shadows still
they carelessly cast

a day is a mere page
in the continuum
of a book-- you hold the pen
what words would you trust?

our hearts waver with time
we feel  pain, loneliness
and sorrow's heavy ******

somehow we begin to sink
though in tiny measure
our voices lose their ardour
we are a ship that has lost its mast

and in the final darkest hour
all is silence and what's left
is but the muted echo
of the unforgiving past.