Lamentation

I love this child of mine
like no other.

I remember
this one rising,
striving, passing
like no other.

This child of mine
was not content
to live day after day,
to let the seasons
revolve without change,
to let each generation
pass through life
from start to finish.

This child strove
to subdue the flow of time,
to master life,
to conquer death,
to slip out of my embrace.
To this child any bond
was bondage.

I am still haunted
by the bitter end
to all the building,
worshipping, contending,
to all the restless seeking…
The bitter, self-inflicted end.

My wounds still fester,
I still burn with fever,
convulse and shudder
with the aftershocks.

Yet I still love,
remember,
long for
this one child of mine
who was like no other.

I keep
the imprints of the footsteps
pressed into my clay,
the bones
fused with my stone.

The soaring, crumbling towers
reach for the sky.
The rusting bridges
sway across the chasms.
The words still sing:
praise,
lamentation,
knowledge,
love,
despair…

The words still sing,
though there is no longer
a voice to give them sound,
an ear to hear and comprehend.

The words still sing
on the singed, moldering pages,
even as all that was created
by this child,
my child,
the human,
returns to dust.