Dry Tides

By Cliff Lake

 

Dry Tides

 

Roaming sands across millennia thrum,

Dry tides swallowing wisdom.

Structures re-found in the wind,

Did we begin again?

 

Failing towers, subdued walls,

Do riddled texts describe the falls?

Lost yesterdays gone dim,

Have we begun again?

 

All that was known is unknown,

All that was is not,

All that was seen is unshown:

Empire gone to naught.

Tales lost beneath the waves of time,

Peering into lost lore,

Sing again forgotten rhyme:

All of this has gone before.

 

Boulevards run beneath the seas,

Statue peers but does not see.

Broken spires unkissed by sun,

Altar’s fires long undone.

 

Symbol and sacrament we cannot scry,

Rehome upon the past not knowing why.

Shallow praise of how far we’ve come:

The gods we raise are just redone.

 

All that was known is unknown,

All that was is not,

All that was seen is unshown:

Empire gone to naught.

Tales lost beneath the waves of time,

Peering into lost lore,

Sing again forgotten rhyme:

All of this has gone before.

 

Mountains raised against the sky,

Forgotten insight buried high.

Cairn and cave and paintings rare,

Meaning straying we know not where.

 

Monuments and monoliths come unhid,

Remnants of empires long undid.

Ruins that warn us to beware:

Our time is a pale compare.

 

All that was known is unknown,

All that was is not,

All that was seen is unshown:

Empire gone to naught.

Tales lost beneath the waves of time,

Peering into lost lore,

Sing again forgotten rhyme:

All of this has gone before.

 

All that was known is unknown,

All that was seen is unshown.

All that was is not,

Empire gone to naught.

Tales lost beneath the waves of time,

We sing again forgotten rhyme.

Peering at the lost lore,

All of this has gone before.

 

Cliff Lake 7/28/2025

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2025

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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