From Where Came?

From where came…

The unexpected odor of immanent departure

Inviting you to never forget

And wipe the moisture from your eyes

As you continued deeper into the unknown

The purpose you knew not of.

Was it the turning of a corner

Where two small girls played with their dolls

On the steps of a burned-out building

Its embers still gasping

As if the smoke bore life

Warning of the many threats

Yet to come.

From where came…

This city of wavering images

Caught in a maelstrom of hollow voices

Challenging you to accept the happening as a dream

Or a preview of the discoveries yet to come.

From where came…

The sudden calm

Like the pulse of a photographer

Taking aim on the sun about to rise

Or the woman turning the corner

Pushing a baby carriage

Where the quiet of a sleeping life invited you

See for yourself

That it was you cocooned in

A web of lace and wilted rose collective

Where life and death were yet to be determined.

From where came…

Your emergence from the density of history’s elan vital

Feeling like someone stepping forward after a long illness

Seeing the world with your heart now beating

With the permanence of life’s rhythmic cadence

As lucidity whispered the beginnings

Of memory’s tenacious purpose.

Never forgetting

You had slipped through the tenacious grip of finality

Into the many yesterday memories

Today’s happenings

And the unknowns of a future yet to come.