Light of Thought

I treasure memories
that may never come to pass
from a life
I'm not sure I'll ever live.

Autumn storms,
dead leaves in the whirlwind,
candle lit windows
paint dark streets in shivers of gold,
nameless avenues
are the only roads I can walk
in a dying future.

I have seen tomorrow
through the fractured lens of today,
a velvet sky
in tattered ruin
beyond a scorched earth
that never dares to dream of water.

And there is
the tomorrow that could be,
the one I dream of,
where oceans run to shimmering blue
and stars
beam like silver chalk
dotted on a blackboard horizon.

All of my yesterdays
would die for the gift of today,
to harvest the beauty of what could be
from the ashen fields
of what is,
to feel the sun burning once more
rather than the cold void
that has taken its place.

Memory
remains unchanged --
a broken past
once rearranged
can set my world at peace.