I walked in a garden

Of forgotten things

 

There I found the childhood

That I had left behind

And in it

And among it

I unearthed a mother’s promise

to always love me

no matter who I was

Inside

or

Out

 

I heard the song

From the throats of songbirds

Locked in gilded cages

 

Scattered dreams

From a thousand dreamers

Smelted in the fire of necessity

Beaten on the anvil of lost hope

And forged into laborers

To labor without inspiration

Their metal does not ring

not even here

 

There I walked the beaten path

Overgrown with weeds

Of forgetfulness

Misery

and shame

That meandered through the garden

That spiraled out in some

Half-finished design

 

I tripped upon the adoration

That a woman had never given

a man had refused to take, a child had not received

That a widow had finally forgotten

In those last moments of bittersweet relief

And now it blossoms here

And with it blooms the perennial grief

Of heartbreak that

Is usually forgotten

But sometimes not

 

Here and there I saw the memories

That slipped away like water

Running through the fingers

Of a distracted mind

 

Once I felt the music

Heard it rise upon the wind

And its melody was timeless

The most intricate of harmonies

But it was never written, never played

It wallowed in the silence

All music needs a listener

And I had soon moved on

 

It rained

sometimes

Each drop was a tear

Someone cried

Because they couldn’t remember

Or didn’t want to

 

I wandered that garden

And I scoured its fruit

The flowers of its pathways, the seeds that had been sown

until

One day the mirrors

That hung from the branches of the trees of unrecognized sacrifice

Told me

That I was but another trinket

Lost in the garden

That I had been forgotten, too