The sands of time can seem so cruel,
like winter winds scouring
the landscape clean
of each fragile leaf memory like a jewel
colored like summers past, and glean
upon this cyclic death from me
past memories of you.

Who knows if like the seasons we
too return each spring anew
beginning life, slates clean and free
of past lives
which cling to us like glue
now buried deep 'neath fresher layers
of all that new life has to bring?

Some, like me, seek answers to
the questions which we are ourselves,
wondering why I may be blue,
and so I reach toward older shelves
built long ago in cruder times
perhaps by my own hands?

Odd studies based on arcane thought
and ancient lore
may point toward truth.
Beneath old tales
real facts are sought,
and so I dig down to the root
of my existence, questing through fate
and time to find the truth of me...

...and finding, deep down, you.

When I glimpsed you in past memory,
guided by an expert's voice,
I wasn't sure just what I'd seen
but realized there could be no choice—
for I must seek you in this time
as I've done so oft' before.

There've been others
whom I've questioned
buried under new flesh-masks,
wishing I could have a sanction
grant me access to the tasks
of regression to their former selves
in my hungry search for you,

little knowing when I'd find you
I'd be following a strand
of but the slimmest little glimmer
of hope it could be true
and then knowing you're the winner
of the strangest contest of them all...
and yet finding, as in our past,

again, we are not meant to be!

I am satisfied, I am fulfilled,
just knowing that I've found you.
While my fantasies of you I gild,
each time when I am by you,
what precious few moments
with you I may share
until I must abandon

you once more, as I did in decades past,
thwarted again by time's cruel sands.
While still joyful
that I've found you fast,
though I'll never know you in my hands,
know that yes, I love you still
and we will be together sometime

my beloved and precious memory
from across lifetimes of desire.
Just so long as you are happy,
this alone must quench my fire
until we meet again, my Love,
God willing, across the sands of time...