Forgotten

 I see a stone cottage somewhere,

balanced on a tranquil lake, with

 a solitary chimney that floats a ghost of smoke into embracing hills. 

Summer roses drench its window box, their heady scent scrawls memories.

The skyline is streaked with sunset, and the lake

bursts the purple blueness of a dying day.  

But I haven’t seen the cottage in a long time.

And now I am afraid I may never have seen it:
it belongs to wishful memory-- a cottage of the mind. 

I capture it beneath a glass dome, the kind that snows glitter.

I set the roses in resin, their scent clings to a cloth handkerchief, decades old. 

Sunset and lake are postcards, souvenirs 

of unknown time and place.  

And we move on to death forgotten.