I pass by their vigilant pictures daily,
magnetized flower frames
holding volumes of stories,
resounding silently,
upon smudged,
fingerprinted refrigerator,
obsolete to Time's world,
but treasured, in mine,
ashes to ashes,
dust to dust...

It was over twelve years ago
when youth and age
were introduced,
with a startled cry
of newborn awareness.
Experienced hands cradled
my dark-haired first child,
as Grandma posed,
with a grudging smile,
picture taking was redundant,
to her frame of Time,
she held beauty, sublimed...

Four years later, after she'd died,
a baldly blonde second daughter
was plopped
into startled Grandfather's
solitary hands,
which had never even cradled
his own two infant daughters,
Old Times dictated otherwise,
the picture is priceless,
frailness, holding fragileness,
his look, astonished, at embracing
genetic descendant's life...

As Alpha gently overtakes Omega,
breathing newfound life
into dusty ash,
echoes resonate,
from the future's past,
gathered into memories,
and expressed between
the soul and the mind,
to be regenerated freely,
and retained, sheltered
in the human hearts,
of a Time going by...

Ashes to ashes,
Dust to Life...

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
Photos by Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
3/04/03 Copyright 2003 ©