Soapbox

Footprints in Stone

Ancient feet once trod through the mud of a prehistoric river
that has long since turned to stone.
These few, faint impressions-
all that is left to tell the story of that ancient journey
all that remains of the fears, struggles, hopes and dreams
of some long forgotten life.

Dark scratches on a folded piece of paper
tucked inside an envelope-
a loop, a whorl,
dotted and crossed:
just a letter you once sent,
but all that now remains of your thoughts of me that day,
footprints locked in the stone of our past.

Variations of light and dark, of bright and shadow,
a petrified smile in Kodachrome that once was you.
Your hand reaches out to touch my shoulder
frozen, mere inches from contact,
forever unconnected now.

Flickering images on celluloid pretend to be you,
waving at the camera at your birthday party.
Magnetic flecks on a bit of tape-
use your voice to ask me to,
"Leave a message at the beep".

What good to me is a letter
without the hand that wrote it?
Yet I surround myself with these fossils,
the burned images of our own Pompeii,
tucked in boxes, slipped into a drawer.
They comfort me and they mock me
for they have journeyed with me into the present
but you are forever in the past
leaving me only these footprints in stone.

I can touch them,
but they do not contain you,
these marks and shapes, this sound and shadow.
Yet sometimes, if I stand within your footprints
and listen carefully to the stillness
as I open myself up wide
I feel you,
trembling on the brink between past and present
and the stone grows soft again beneath me
from your recent passing.