Red Dust

Do they remember,
our promises back then?
Before youth was wasted,

When we were consumed with angst,
and our eyes were yet unopened
to the dreadful impermanence?

Do you remember,
a sky light with colors and clouds,
not yet bearing down
like falling deities?

When supportive hands
could help us
to hold Heaven

Before we realized
that while we dreamed
of ghosts and deities
our humanity was sinking?

Or have they forgotten too,
not to become hypocrites,
to not be tainted by the red dust
like you and I were?