To Hold What Slips Away

The feeling of watching mountains clad with snow
the views from the top, the valley’s expanse and the winding river below
The blinding field of dandelions that force themselves to your eyes as you drive by
The quiet stream with a small tree under it where you can sit and let time fly
The perfect branch you find on your way through the hilled forest
Or the seashell that leaves you in raptures, but is left in the sand
For you just could not find the place it needed in your pocket.

The feeling of watching the sunset alone.
As the light falls away through the teal and crimson sky.
The one peacock that you see unfurl its tail.
In your presence alone as the rains burst out and away.
The moment when you see the first leaf fall in the autumn noon.
Or perhaps the bear pawing at your hands through the glass at the zoo.
What of the first flake of snow that falls on the palm of your hand.
before any other crystal of ice had thought of touching.
any other building or tree or being in all the land.

The one time a child compliments you on the street.
The one time the balloon man just handed one to you for free.
Or the money that you found on the ground when your day was bad
Or how the stray cat that wanders around decides to sit on your lap
I remember the one time last decade, when I danced with strangers
and the woman held my hand and swayed on new years eve
And also the time when someone snuck in my favourite candy
to the theatre for me, hidden under their sweater sleeves

There are places in the winding brick road of our lives
where things and moments seem to combine and coalesce
and you long to hold on to the moments, the people, the place
you want photos, you want souvenirs and then you want scars
because the memories that you own are what make you what you are
and to have something to hold on to that you have no right over
maybe even for the slightest moment without ever truly it being yours
makes the memory your own, and if i am to be made of but memories in scores
Then so be it. There is not in the world a guiltier, viler pleasure than to imagine
to dream and concoct the ichor of fantasy. To believe that the world would in hands thine
place a memory that you can call your own even if you know in yourself
even if you know the moment was but fleeting, trivial, or worse. Dead.