Standing Still Poem by Kevin Moore

Had I told you how my feelings, then, would last
for you (a forest fire burns so hot!) ,
words - wasted - would be echoes in my past

and carry not the weight of times now passed -
my youth misused and wreckage-strewn, besides -
each new feeling held no longer than the last.

(Still, one small ember from that fire cast
aside and then ignored has smoldered, long.)
No wasted words, these echoes from my past

Have grown - though pain and love and joy amassed
through time, now passed, might work to quench a flame -
How I have longed for feelings that would last!

Breathless now, time standing still as shattered glass,
I've set my heart to page - the fire fueled -
no words wasted, no echoes of my past.

No longer can I keep this fire banked,
or hide the embers kept safe within my heart...
had I told you how my feelings, then, would last,
those wasted words would be ashes of my past.