Sunset

There is dust on my dreams.

In the room where I store them,

The air is musty, and the light is dim 

The shelves along the walls sag under the weight of unfulfilled goals

Every nook and cranny, stuffed with unpublished poems and songs.

Lamentations of love lost and life’s longings. 

The winged horse I rode as a child

has grown fat and lazy and doesn’t want to fly anymore

His coat is unkempt, and his once glorious mane is almost bare 

The mountains I used to climb seem taller

Their snowcaps, more massive, extend farther down their slopes.

The forest at their base seems thicker, darker, and more forbidding. 

They no longer seduce me. Instead, they frighten me and warn me away. 

And my Superman suit

Wrinkled, and tossed across the back of my easy chair,

is missing its cape!

Derek Crockett

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