2016-08-07 – Ghosts at the fair

 
The flutter of wings through an open window,
   the movements of light across the floor.
Our lives, like the shifting shadows
   that haunt the late afternoons
      of the days when we are no more.

These photos, these memories,
   these senses of all that we are.
We hold them against us
   as if they were proof against
      the power of the shifting sand.

My name, my lover, my family, my friend,
   all on the carousel that turns
      and frees them all again.

Meteors and arc-lights, we stand against an end
   that shifts like light and shadows
      and absorbs us all and then....

Every treasured feeling rendered into air
   every cupboard full of memories
      to be opened empty and bare.

The turning wheel of transience
   the scythe that cuts the air
we of momentary consciouness
   are the patterns on the rides
      at an endless entropic fair.

gallagher
Christchurch
07Aug2016

— Copyright 1965-2016 by Dennis Gallagher —

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