Memory Of Dust Poem by Barry Middleton

to all places of aspirant return
you to the small affluent farm
where the fat brown cows graze

or you to the pink glow of azaleas
beneath live oaks and gray moss
shimmering like a pastel spring fog

and to all strangers out of place
the white iris in a field of purple
staring amazed and lonely as grief

you of the wild white river raging
the silence of footfalls in cedars
in time's snow capped mountains

you of sorrow and cocaine winter
desperately tuned to a blue dance
ascending lost ecstasy in a dream

cherish the moment and memory
soon we become the gray past
soon we return full circle to earth

our last vow of perpetual journey
ends with the stone city of death
where memories reside in the dust