Like the banks of the Colorado River eroded by the wind and the water and the whipping rain of the western skies,

All temporal things slip

Away

We hold what we can.
Resolute boulders break the flow,
Try to arrest the water as it goes
Rushing on towards the eternity

Of the sea

Only temporarily are these tangible things owned
Bodies clutched close
As if we could hold back the wind with our fingers,
But as the storm gathers and lifts the sand from the cliffs

Only the memories linger

The sunset falls outside my window
And all that was
Is left to dwindle to a trickle of a feeling
Of a ghost against the redness of the sky.

One must learn to look inwards

Because these outward landscapes of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters

They fly

And these moments are like the shadows of birds
Across the waters of the western plains;

Here, while the dying sun remains,

And gone.