Relics of the Long Sleep

By Cliff Lake

 

Relics of the Long Sleep

 

Legends that arrive from somewhere deep.

Stories that we somehow reap.

Secrets we were never meant to keep:

These are the relics of The Long Sleep.

 

Why do our dreams seem so aglow?

What have we lost of the Long Ago?

What did we spend and what do we owe?

We dreamember what we used to know.

 

We don’t know what we don’t know,

We try to learn but we’re so slow.

Visions come and visions go,

And leave us with what we don’t know.

 

What ancient memory did someone sweep?

Why must we pay cost so steep?

We somehow must make the faithful leap

To collect our relics of the Long Sleep.

 

Stolen strength or merely lost?

What vital knowledge have we tossed?

A history now over-glossed:

Mythologize a holocaust.

 

We don’t know what we don’t know,

We try to learn but we’re so slow.

Visions come and visions go,

And leave us with what we don’t know.

 

Trials we ascend grow ever steep,

We try to run, but only creep.

We find answers making the dark more deep,

Misunderstanding relics of the Long Sleep.

 

Why have things gotten so bleak and so stark?

Traversing life with barely a spark.

Marking time but missing the mark,

How have we chosen this lengthy dark?

 

We don’t know what we don’t know,

We try to learn but we’re so slow.

Visions come and visions go,

And leave us with what we don’t know.

 

Legends that arrive from somewhere deep.

Stories that we somehow reap.

Secrets we were never meant to keep:

These are the relics of The Long Sleep.

 

Life has gone hard and ever more cheap.

We delve mysteries gone too steep.

Will the secrets forever keep?

Lost in the relics of the Long Sleep.

 

We don’t know what we don’t know,

We try to learn but we’re so slow.

Visions come and visions go,

And leave us with what we don’t know.

 

Cliff Lake 4/11/2026

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2026

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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