The Crumbling Veil of Yesteryears

“O Memory,” he whispers to the stones,
“Unspool the tapestry your vaults have kept—
The laughter etched in dust, the husked moans,
The promises the gales of years have swept.”
The ruins hum a dirge of bygone days,
Of marble halls now choked with ivy’s embrace,
Of fountains dry where children once did play,
And lovers’ vows dissolved in time’s cold chase.

A spectral shape now flits through veils of gray,
A flicker, like a leaf in autumn’s fist—
A face he knew, now frayed to mere decay,
A voice once song, now ash on mist’s cold wrist.
“Elara!” cries his soul, though lips stay sealed,
For decades taught his heart its cage of lead.
She fades, a wisp of lore too long concealed,
A ghost of choices damned by paths he fled.

He stumbles where the western archway bends,
Its keystone carved with names the rains have slain,
And there, beneath the rubble’s weight, descends
To chambers where the past lies chained in vain.
A chest, with rusted clasps that groan their grief,
Reveals a scroll, its seal unbroken still—
A script that trembles like a wind-swept leaf,
Ink stained with tears no storm could ever still.

“To you, whose shadow guards my waking breath,
Though silence stretches vast as starless seas,
Know this: the love we damned to fear’s false death
Now haunts the hollow where my heart once beat.
I waited, where the lilies kiss the stream,
Till winter stole the roses from my cheek.
Forgive the truth that dares to break the dream—
I kept your vow, though yours you did not keep.”

The parchment falls, a leaf from autumn’s bier,
His hands, twin ruins, clutch the crushing air.
The walls, once mute, now murmur, “She was here—
Each dusk she lingered, combing twilight’s hair.
Her lantern waned, yet still its flame endured,
Till frosts of age did still her pulse’s chime.
Beneath the willow’s shroud she rests interred,
Her name now lost to all but vengeful Time.”

Through shattered lanes he reels, a storm unchained,
The willow’s silhouette his compass turned,
Where roots like serpents coil, their malice feigned,
And whispers of her scent in loam are burned.
A mound, unmarked, where nettles crown the earth,
A single lily, pale as moon’s regret,
Now bends its head—a dirge of silenced mirth,
A testament to how the Fates may bet.

“O cruel,” he wails, “that life’s protracted breath
Should outlive every bloom we dared to sow!
What justice in this ledger scrawled by death,
Where love is but a scar the stars outgrow?”
The gale, now judge, intones through branch and thorn,
“You mourned a dream, while truth in darkness slept.
The vows you buried, like a rose unborn,
In tombs of prudence, rot where you have stepped.”

He claws the soil, each nail a plea undone,
To touch the hand he fled from youth’s sweet brink.
The earth, unyielding, greets him like a stone,
As night’s black tide dilutes the lily’s pink.
Beneath the stars, now veiled in sorrow’s hue,
He lays his brow upon her nameless grave,
And begs the worms to grant this one virtue:
To meld his dust with hers, whom chance forgave.

The dawn, a voyeur, spills its pallid light
Upon two forms—one breathing, one long still.
His fingers clutch the lily, frozen white,
Her phantom’s breath now singing through the hill.
The city, witness, sighs its final truth,
As winds conspire to shroud his last repose:
That dreams, when nursed by time’s deceptive tooth,
Are but the graves where living hope once froze.

Thus lies the sage who bartered love for chains,
Who sealed his heart to keep its rhythm safe,
Now food for roots, where silent night explains
That life’s true sum is but the risk we waive.
The ruins guard their tale, in stone and scroll,
A hymn to choices carved in sorrow’s keep,
Where every shadow, whispering, extols
The cost of dreams that wake when we’re asleep.