Memories and Moments

I hold the moments close that once I cared

Most insufficiently and let them pass

As long ago my ego dense and crass,

Proud, unknowing, 'the world is mine', declared.

Yet looking back too long is like a chain

That binds us in our all too human pain

And keeps the striving soul from leaping out.

For memories hold sorrows much too deep

That live again in all our troubled sleep

And in the nightmare dark we choke and shout,

Alone in world's of ugliness and fear

Where strange and evil presences draw near,

Unable to control our dreams we shake

Like a naked body exposed to the snow

Unless in silence we still the mind to know.

We must resist the long sleep and wake

To beauty walking by the shores of time

Assisting us in this superhuman climb

Know all we are and all that we must be,

Shake off the torpor and the deep heart's grief,

Hold fast to truth and to the one belief,

The promise of the spirit's destiny.