Open to the sounds around me
The doomed beauty of trying

The wary travel sidesteps into the inn
Trying to generate some interest in him

In the final assessment, the critics failed to even take notice
The muse has an exhibit
Of the extinct trials, and the sympathy they showed
For those they left behind

And time expands beyond all understanding
Into thousands of stories
Lost first to the speaker, unable to see themselves
and then too to the audience
unable to hear as there lives swarm around them
To their own influence, their power fades as others pick up the cry

Lost next to the space, the circumstance, the fallible memory
The cumbersome nature of words and fingers

To the wind, to the ravages of time

To the empires falling, and stars imploding

The wary traveler knows none this, as he sips his drink
Scared at every moment that he could be taken unaware
Caught without his glasses, shown to be the fool

The molecules of his glass
Formed of explosions uncomprehended

And in the final assessment
After the millennia have passed

None will notice as all comes black
And the stories forgotten too fade away

Cooling soothing…. gone