Traces

-Sometimes they return, the indelible
traces of where you’ve been, the footprints
of existence and experience following you,
only one step behind. You close your eyes,
forge on forward, but you know they’re there.
They dance at family gatherings, as if
they’re more at home than you. Reminding you
of the peace and of the suffering that have woven
of time and space the presence of your essence,
one manifestation after the present. And even
as they fade out of memory, they remain the lingering
sensation that life is more than what you see
when you’re awake and greater than what you dream
when you are unaware.