What We Carry Within

We gather fragments as we roam,
And make of distant places home;
A scent, a song, a fading view,
Can keep a vanished world in you.

A fallen leaf, a stone of grey,
May hold the warmth of yesterday;
A little note, a tune once heard,
Can wake a thousand silent words.

We keep the dreams we left behind,
Old paths that still return to mind;
The passions born, then set aside,
Still leave their colours deep inside.

Some chapters ended before their time,
Some never found their final rhyme;
Yet every loss and every gain
Leaves something lasting in our frame.

For life is not the years we count,
Nor all the peaks we try to mount;
It lives in moments, small and true,
That changed the way we once saw through.

And when the years have softened all,
When distant memories gently call,
We find ourselves, serene and whole,
In every trace that shaped the soul.

The faces fade, the seasons turn,
Yet treasured sparks within us burn;
What time removes from sight and place,
The heart preserves with quiet grace.

So let the years move as they may,
And carry yesterday away;
For nothing loved is wholly gone—
Its light lives on when days move on.