The death of a dream
Comes with a finality
That isn’t as evident
When it takes birth.

When it was nascent,
Still a fledgling,
Not quite ready to take flight,
You breathed life into it,
In the silence of the starry nights.

The wind whispered your hopes
For the young one,
It wafted across the valley
Carried by the birdsong.

And that is how it took shape,
Slowly, across the span of a lifetime,
A wisp of hope dressed as a wish,
Indeed, an incandescent dream.

And now it lies extinct,
Smoke emanating from the dead tip
Of the extinguishes matchstick,
There is no death knell,
The ocean’s darkest swell
Rises above to quell it,
And it is gone
Just like that,
As if it never existed.