I have dreamed great dreams
and I have seen them taken.
No, not taken, denied.
Dragged wailing into day's light
left to die in harsh contrast to waking life.

I have seen great cities,
unknown, rising from the plain
growing new before my eyes.
Towers and spires, none the same
telling a tale of lives I cannot follow.

I have woken to dawn,
fading visions into memories I curse,
hating them for hints of loss.
Wanting to wake again, back
back where loss is memory.

There are no roads back
no paths to follow
only failing memory.
Only fading hopes.

I have lived great triumphs,
victories without war,
friends I never lose.
My influence spread gently,
designs and ideas accepted,
my plans writ large upon the world.

Plans and triumphs that grow
live, dance, and change.
Giving me great surprise,
children grown beyond intent.
Joy and Satisfaction.

I have seen my plans of triumph fade
obsoleted, grown past.
My memories of them poisoned
by new eyes, seeking every flaw.
Nothing left but hints
marking old mistakes.

These things I remember
like glances of stories
too fast and light to hold them,
only scents of their meaning left.

I curse my memory in both directions.

I cannot hold my past self fast
the younger man who dreamed great things
the details slip and splotch
even two days past I struggle to contain
the tiny pieces of my lost dreams.
I cannot quite lie
that nothing of me dies with them.

But these memories burn me.
Better to be nothing,
than remember enough to regret,
than to feel enough to weep for loss.
I would rip past days from me
deny my past, forget my dreams
to live in peace
free of comparison.

Both paths are denied.
I lose myself in fading memories,
my past dreams and old hopes tatter and are gone.
Left are memories of memories
just holes that held something, their shapes hinting at the loss,
the blackness there telling me
telling me I too am gone, in measure.
Yesterday's dreamer is dead.
I am all that remain.

So today too, I will dream.
I will dream great dreams,
I will see great cities,
I will live great triumphs,
and I will remember them,
failingly, haltingly, in tattered record
to pass them to tomorrow.
So he too will despair,
and he too will worry that something of who he was
lives in those fading things.

There is another hope
another dream.
It does not visit me in visions.
but lies above them.
Today I am upon a hill
I climbed part of it yesterday
tomorrow I will climb another.
And I must dream, must hope
each hill brings me closer
to where it comes from.

That each day's dying
and each day's steps trace a direction
a path of lives and plans
that points to a man
some day
some when
a man wearing something like my face
with something like my name
who carries some dim piece of me
a man who needs not fear memory
who fears no dream of fairer places.
a man who has come home.