Two Lakes
A year ago we stood on a beach where lake kissed stone,
A castle crowned the shoreline — a place we called our own.
We thought the walls were endless, that the lake would always stay —
But castles burn and families break and shorelines wash away.
Stone can’t guard a family when time decides to take;
Fire burns through iron will, no vow too strong to break.
Now the castle’s ashes drift through dreams that won’t keep still,
My family scatters ghosts across some far and silent hill.
Now I stand before another lake, my voice below its sweep,
A new family laughs beside me, but I’m too far, too deep!
I wonder if this other lake remembers what I’ve lost?
If water knows how stone forgets, if waves can count the cost.
I hold my child and say soft words I wish someone had said to me;
I build a house of borrowed hope — a place I hope she sees.
A year can steal a kingdom, a year can thin the thread,
The fire leaves its embers deep, the bones still speak the dead.
Alone inside the voices, I watch the ripples cut and run —
A promise half-remembered, that dark can swallow sun.
Stone and blood are fragile things — but I still stand and stay,
A ghost beside the waterline that grief won’t wash away.