Ephemeral Echoes

The whispered words fade swiftly in the night,
Half-heard, then lost amid the yawning dark,
No record left of cries that winged in flight,
Now wandered far beyond recall’s dim spark.

So many shouts now silenced in the gloom,
Traces buried neath time’s ever-churning waves,
Sound’s phantoms surging from the past’s dark womb
That rippled out from tongues in unnamed graves.

And even shouts that shake the very earth,
That seem immortal in their swelling strain,
That echo long past points of first birth,
Through aeons wane till naught but ghosts remain.

All voices mortal must this limit know -

Their echoes ebb as waters everflow.