Hearsay Song

They are dying out and I want to reach them before they are gone

Not that I know what I would say to them when I get there

Their songs rippling beneath temporary sky

As I approach, as I am doing now

Even though I am nowhere near wherever they are

Swirling in blossoming dust and dreaming they are not

They are dying out and I want to reach them before they are gone

Just as I want to reach myself before I too am gone

Another blossom sliding into slime

What notes do I hear drenched in fiery sky

Are these ghosts rising up before me

Or gasps of dust near a lake covered by algae

They are dying out and I want to reach them before their names vanish

Before they become ghosts dying in pink algae and ruined vowels

Not that I know what their songs say

Telling sting of monstrous human torrent

Wheeling above burning story of lost lives

Tapering branches of smoke, red and yellow leaves falling

They are dying out and I want to reach them

Before my name joins theirs in plastic matrimony

Before a blue-eyed undertaker powders my nose

Or I turn to powder in squirt gun of unprofitable insects

Secrets folded away never rinsed in scum corner

History erasing traces of its nothing new

Source: PoetryNow (2016)