Our Past Beneath Our Feet

It doesn’t matter that

We didn’t know you,

Your name eroded

Above this graveyard plot,

Your place

Not by history marked,

Nor to great events connected

That even like an unknown soldier

Would otherwise note your part.

But like your fissured stone,

Your missing presence in the past,

Even just your may have been walking on this grass,

Would, by tiny cracks of absence

Of some substance lost in us

Imperceptibly diminish

Our cosmic consciousness.

Upon the pictures of what has gone

We gaze on heroes and the greats

Nobles and devils,

Those we love and those we hate.

Yet without the painting canvas by most of us ignored,

This fabric, we its warped and wefted threads,

This stretched taught plain of plainness

Upon which these epic daubings stand,

Would be our own history fractured

And us this canvas, torn.

Even while looking upon your place

Our standing present here

Drips its instant droplets

Of this now becoming then

Moments falling from our lives

Absorbed to yours before

Our dreaded destined end.

We splash our colours.

Despite in hope of memorable shapes and signs

Until our story stops its flow,

We gladly add our likely unknown tale,

Our brief and humble history standing,

Mixed with yours forever.

Becoming this and all the ground

Of all we’ve been together.