Empty Pavements

As I move and slip into their darkness
Through years of my existence
In places of all sorts, in places
Called home, from its snows
To the deserts, all in its view

As I speak to them in their voices
Forlorn and in despair,
As I look at their hands,
The years of toil full of crevices,
Of labor, and of years in practice
In their aspiration
Like whispers, like echoes

Speak to me they all
Belong to me they all,
In residence this pain, in you and me
Through them, my instincts
The turmoil of mind and heart

From all those places,
Where these trails find its tracks
From the moment
When the Sun draws its breath
From those valleys in the north
To the distant islands of south
From the mountains in the east
To the distant steppes of the west

As their tears pour out, in the silence
Of the night and its mechanics
As their hands stutter in voices of anger
Seen I have from the days of my beginnings
See I them still, from to the days of their end
Strange times have passed,
In you and me, as this magic draws
Its venom and its life, of existence

As I hear their whispers,
Of old aspirations and dreams
As their pain draws me closer
Too close to feel, too late to ignore
As they pass onto me,
The old regrets, their past
They say you have become like us
As they become my words and air

As they sit down, in those evenings
With old steps and shadows I walk
To go through again, with my friends
My people, myself and all that I I have
To solve, mysteries of life, in front of us
Like an arrival of morning, on empty pavements
The reminders of the evenings, on their faces
Crevices in my words, crevices in my soul
As their words begin to find its voice
In my surrender, in my awakenings!

Kashkin