When all you have
Are memories

Who will
Remember you?

Humanity and it's legacy
Forever immortalized
In the cosmos
By a metallic structure
That couldn't hold a single person.

The sounds of our home,
As tremulous as they may be,
Are left to echo quietly
Through the grooves
Of our planet's most sacred relic:
A shiny artifact made of that
Which glitters softly in
The eternal night.

Whether or not it shall ever
Be looked upon again
Remains to be seen,
But one thing is for certain:
Though we may die
And every planetary body
That we know may follow,
Our solar system will forever
Live on
Through the modest craft
That shall never perish,
Even in the darkest of nights.

From our sacred ground,
We launched it into the stars
To endure a boundless eternity.
Venturing into the unknown
To preserve humanity's light
Until the end of
Time.

Tick Tock
Seconds go by
The timer will reach zero
But the clock will keep ticking

Tick Tock
Years go by
The clock will stop
But time will go on

Are we the timer or the clock
Or can we be both?
When we’re gone time will go on
But will our legacies as well?

is this it?
the life we were promised?
we look past the present, we say that we're honest
is this it?
the great romance novel?
a happy ending sappy ending a villain who's awful?
is this it?
our legacy? our time?
the hate the love the good the bad the justice and the crime?
if this is it
where did our time go?
fast and then slow, fast, slow, fast, slow
is this it?

To those who are gone.
We’ll carry your legacy.
To honor your life.

I reach back through memory and mortality
To inspire that which I am to become
Exciting the bones of my ancestors
Their feathers of black and red and white
The golden rays of dead and declining stars
Deflecting off the face of the moon
"Is life still real if it echoed?"
"Yeeess," they exhale from eons past.
The first and only answer to an ageless urge
Stretching to me, through me
Filling the unfathomable empty
With intimacy and evidence
New issues to nurture
Most seeds remain in the shadows
Dreaming of a shift in the design
Stardust progressing toward potential
Again and again and again
And again the bond is broken
And refashioned
I am remembered
In unsettled frenzy, my soul awakens
Setting alight my future

He spoke the language of birds
of pickle ****
and lichen
and ailerons
and shutter speeds

Where I saw a blackbird with a spot of red on a wing

He saw Agelaius Phoeniceus a  passerine bird of the family  Icteridae found in most of  North America and much of  Central America

His mind and mouth were full of facts and figures
about wind
and lift
and tides
and the right time to plant and to harvest tomatoes

Music and science were things to be dissected
and perfected
and each thing was measured
and calculated
and intentional
like the metronome I played with on the piano in the spare room

I did not always understand him
I did not always try to learn

a kid dabbling in punk rock and drawn to graffiti will
I found it hard to relate to someone so exacting

But while I do not remember his laugh
I do remember his joy
at explaining the circuitry in a handmade airplane
or the minutiae of the wondrous geometric cellular structure of a pine cone

A hike in the sloughs and I ran ahead
while he kneeled and saw a tiny marvel, a flower or a lizard hidden by my hurry, tucked behind a leaf and revealed by his slow and patient attention

He taught us to see
To look close
To take the time to do it well

And while we bristled at the pocket knife,
cutting candy into enragingly tiny mouthfuls

he taught us to savor
and make the moments last

He never rushed a photograph
He never hurried though a museum
He never pushed you out after dinner
He sat
and listened
and truly saw you
in focus.

While his eyes blurred with age
And his ears failed him
He never stopped taking in the moment and he never stopped his ever and perfect focusing
On the thing in front of him, perhaps small but made large by his attention

The last time I saw him
he clearly
and directly looked me in the eye
and in his way
gave a blessing
passing on his focus

“Send those kids my love. Take care of them.”

And in those words
I understood him.