Pace Change- A Poem

It’s always been easy for me to get stuck wandering long empty halls

Lost as a metaphor for a child or a dream that’s gone on for a bit far too long

Hands trail over wallpaper fossils that represent decayed mental states

Adrift in our colorblind wonder and in awe of the false rays of dawn.

The bones trace like chalk on a sidewalk and feel like our childhood loves

They match the arms that held me tight in a grip but sobered when given enough time

New eyes trace bare patches of texture and age in a search for our past family flicker

While faded footsteps dance in the shadows of loss and a corrosion to which we resign.

There are no longer the etchings in bone of old breaks and every hard memory earned

Worn smooth by the incessant presence of time that hovers even when left alone

The back porch sags on wood rotting and overlooks a lawn growing fresh green

Lost remnants of a childhood’s yellowed dead grass that packed dirt into cement iron stone.

There’s a pain in old space that lingers and does whether inside, outside, or both

As heads tilt to one side and then another in search of something left far behind

It’s a treasure hunt sailing seas for a meaning in a world where an X holds a home

In the fossilized hope that the last thing to go will be the past and the grasp on simpler times.