The Path Through Dune and Memory

The wind does not forget this place—
a whispering tongue in brittle grass,
where footsteps fade but never vanish,
etched in the lean of withered dune.

She walks the crooked, salt-blown path
as if returning from a dream,
the hem of night clinging to her coat,
hair swept like smoke toward forgotten skies.

Above, the crows rise in a scattered psalm,
a black benediction cast in flight.
They do not mourn, not truly—
only echo what has passed beneath.

No names are spoken here aloud,
only thought, half-formed and frail
like the bones of sea-washed driftwood
that line the trail with silent grace.

And still she walks—
not forward, not quite back,
but into that thin, wind-worn space
where the dead speak softest
and the living listen best.

- Kevin McManus