My Past's Shadow

A quiet
not one word or gesture
emptiness

A soft wind in the breeze.
echoes of children playing.
time is frozen

The sound of shoes on crisp grass
and only the camera's shutter can be heard

Footprints of the many that have stepped
sounds fill my ears, and smells up my nostrils

as if only a moment had gone by
since i held her in my arms

She who now bellows a cry i dare not hear
she who to this day grapples with reality

I can not move, for my back has stiffened
a pile of thick mud lay over what was once.

A chill that i have not sensed before comes around me
circles me, and chokes me like a snake

loosening
I hear the woooooooosh of wind on the trees around me

as i near them, they speak to me
I feel there pain as they cry out in need of warmth

I look back on a faint sillhouette
of my past's shadow.