A word is but a touch. This poem is the trace of a touch
that vanishes... and yet lingers in the air.
The windowpanes whispered, scarred -
something still whispers in the stillness there,
where saffron, withered into an echo,
rests in an old tome.
This is a flower. The dry shiver of sleep
that slid down from memory,
like a silver sound from the lips.
A name forgotten. Loss as if it never was,
only the fragility of old warmth.
A broken stem - a sign of fading.
Sepia in the heart, grey dawn.
The page creaks - not from pain,
but from time, which weathered the voice.
The silk of thoughts rustles - who is she?
Whose warmth is in those petals?
Whose fingers touched the leaf,
and why within me - this void?
I remember - and slip away as a shadow.
In the dried flower - my own shadow.
It whispers: "you too were me..."
...and I know no more which of us has vanished.
When the last memory turns to dust,
the body disappears in a whisper of vanishing.
Only the flower remained... and already - not quite:
for even it -
blown
by the eternal
wind
from
the tomes.