Those Forgotten Dreams

What are you wiping off
When you wipe on that wall?
Why, so many dreams,
Which died, forgotten,
In the breasts of them
That dreamed it.
And did they struggle
To create them?

They gave everything,
And their reward,
For all their work
Was to be a forgotten dream.
And to be slowly scratched away,
By someone
Wiping at a wall.
Some justice!

Their resistance
To be forgotten
Redoubles the efforts
Of those that work to forget.
To wipe away,
Is the dream of one,
And to leave something
Which can never be wiped away the other.

And so, which impulse should win?
For yesterday's dreams
Did not imagine today,
But are stuck in their present.
New needs have arisen
Instantaneously from each moment,
And this moment forbids
The past dream's presence.

And so should the dreamer pause,
Mindful,
Of some many unknown tomorrows?
I cannot tell you how to dream.
But, be careful how permanent you make
Your castles of isolation,
For, they may become isolated
From reason, sense, and belonging.

And once they stick out,
Become out of place,
They will be removed,
No matter how difficult.
And those that lament it,
Well, stop and imagine a world
In which people dreamed,
But never wiped clean.

It would be filled
With every dream ever,
And no dream no need
Would ever become reality.
So dream softly,
When you dream,
Or when you dream,
Dream impermanently.