I will walk these streets again,
roads that seemed irrelevant to a young man,
now lined with memories and mysteries
and questions not yet answered
still hanging on lips I never kissed
or kissed once too often for redemption.
Here is where I saw the savage sun
cut through clouds of sweat and stench
that wrench the soul and seal control
of destinies for a generation or more.
And all the shadows faded in the light,
night coming to mark their passing, later.
Here is where I watched the shifting moon
rise and smile and hide me in the blue hues
of thoughts made fantasies made events
I will not relinquish, even unto the next sphere,
where there will not be more than a thought
caught on the spindles of the evening stars.
Streets of brick, of stone, of dirt and paved
to the end of the moment, hills higher than dreams,
dreams darker than clouds, clouds thicker than blood,
blood softer than promises long forgotten and gone,
on beyond the very furthest reach of all you teach
and taught and fought for in my shallow youth.
I will walk these streets again and see faces
I have not seen since I was barely budding in a garden
already crested with petals and leaves and thorns
I have not worn or wondered on in too long, songs lost
to the winds that came from the whims of women
and men and boys and girls that walked here, as well.