Could we create our beginning
even in the presence
or unpresence of memory,
or meaning,
or truth,
as the case
may someday find itself to be.
Could we find ourselves
to be, or not,
as present or past
drifting into an unknowing future
becomes the glass
separating our realities
from ourselves.
Our untouched hands
reaching upward
to their mirrored selves
feign to touch each other,
and in the act of touching
remain forever untouched
by others
or by themselves.
The future hides forever
behind the mirror of the past
which we have called present.
Where we are
is but a reflection
of where we have been,
forever hiding from our eyes
where we should be
when we stop
to look around again.
And seeking
to know where we are,
we reach our fingers upward in vain
touching only the dim reflections
of our vanished past.
Standing forever
in the act of touching
our empty reflections
we remain forever untouching
and thus untouched.
But could we ever
create our beginnings?
Even in the presence
of these present images?
Could we ever turn
not to touch ourselves
or our reflections,
But each other,
as if the world were new
and we had never walked in vain
to touch a vanished mirror.