Youthful Dreams

I don't know when they left, but they did---
those words, those sounds upon my lips
and the feeling.
It's gone now-- a shattered memory of youth.
I do not know her.
She is a scarce memory, a stranger,
someone who held onto the dreams of words and sounds
whose thoughts went deeper, whose meaning was concrete and yet so sad.
She held to the dream, held it crumpled in her fist.
Some day. It's there. I can see it. I can hear it
her thirst for it.
And yet, she left me.
I don't remember when.
She scarcely closed the door
and tiptoed out unnoticed.
She was gone
long gone and the sound of her voice and the thrill of the sounds
quieted by time.
Her voice was written upon a page
and the book was closed
unfinished.