When Days Turn Into Memories

When days turn into memories and time becomes a journey of peaceful purpose from my traveled trails where jagged rocks are formed in the mind from emotional upheaval and are now covered in pictographs of faces drawn left as monuments to the memory of life's meaning I pause when I hear the distant echo of decisions made that fade away as quietly as they came leaving me to ponder on these ripples created that rapidly flow through the valley of my heart filled with choices and days which will never be again I've come to pluck memories from the tree of yesterday that stands naked in life's meadow where I was found alone and trembling covered by the fallen leaves from its tender branches that stretch across the loneliness of my soul I sit beneath its dim-lit shade to rest then awaken in the dawn's soft realm of tomorrow where I find I'm tired, old, and wrinkled yet, with each blink of my eye I see the distance traveled leaving my soul, a vagabond drenched in the memories I have shared as I climb closer to the mountaintop where death waits to strip away all that ever was important or unimportant to me it's where time will steal my flesh living me invisible to the tree of yesterday's that dissolves away with the cold timeless winds that do not care as they blow across the standing etched marble where travelers walk on sacred ground with heads bowed wondering about those whose names are carved while they leave cut flowers as a way to give purpose to memories to the days they are yet to travel 5/15/22