The Embers

The Embers

The fire was glowing,
So warm, so serene,
And as it died slowly,
Such pictures I’d seen.

I poked at the embers,
Each one with a story,
A picture of life,
Of sadness and glory.

In the ashes I imagined my life,
So many pictures I could see,
In the burning coal and dying wood,
The pictures were all of me.

There was the young girl,
So happy and carefree,
Running wild through childhood,
With the whole world before me.

Then there was the mother,
Who bore a beautiful child,
And the woman whose husband
Was cruel and wild.

The sadness, the sorrow,
The unhappy wife,
The death of my mother,
My father, my life.

It was all there in the embers,
Each picture had a tale,
Of happiness and heartache,
Of times when I was frail.

I poked a little harder,
From left to right,
And suddenly I saw something
That didn’t seem quite right.

It showed an old lady,
And that lady was me,
Sitting alone in silence,
With nothing left to see.

Nothing but an empty story,
On an empty bookshelf,
No one there beside me,
Just an old woman by herself.

Is this how my life will end?
With no family and no friends?
Just memories of yesterday,
And a loneliness that never ends?

I poked the embers once again,
But the flames had almost gone,
The pictures slowly faded,
And nothing lingered on.

As each flame died out so slowly,
I felt trapped, with nowhere to go,
I searched among the ashes,
For a life I used to know.

I poked again,
But the flames had gone,
And only my bitterness,
Silence and tears lingered on.