As I Look into My Empty Hands

I hope I have the time to draw a map of all the places that are now gone

Not of fear of forgetting them, but because I need a physical context

something I can hold in my hands and pass to the kids, ''here'' I'd say 

"this is all that love that was held by 

walls too young to be history,

and too old to have a future."

These places are worthy to those who bothered to love them,

even though all things will be gone from earth someday.

But I weep for what was gone before it got the chance to bloom. 

As I write a poem because I can't bear to draw a map

that will take me by hand and back in time to places far gone.

And I fear my whole life will be spent in hopeless search

For an elegy to all the love I was too buried in grief to give.