“I” gone

headstones in old cemeteries

tell stories in names, dates and epithets

we can conjure but never be sure

loved ones may never die so long

as we live in someone’s memory

but that means “we,”  “I” will disappear

“I” will cease to exist, even in memory

but was I not part of something vast

beyond my comprehension?

was  “I” not merely a trickle in a brook

the merged into a stream  that joined

a mighty river to the sea?

the way of all

singing in another celebration

of life tomorrow, another friend

gone ‘the way of all flesh’

another life that reminds me

of the finite quality of my own

the concept of time seems local

to me, but within my un-vast

world, i had a beginning

and will have an end

perhaps then i will understand

what ‘i’ have been