The Memory Remains

In the clearing where the manakins would spin Feathers bright as stained glass, light breaking in You taught me how to leap from branch to moonlit ground We choreographed a language without sound Every flutter was a promise we believed Every call across the canopy, received You were the rhythm, I was the spin Two birds tracing light on feathered limbs Now the forest floor keeps time To a dance that's only mine I still return to where your colors caught the dawn The stage is empty, but the footwork lingers on I trace the patterns carved in muscle, bone, and air Calling out to branches that no longer answer there The clearing holds the shape of what we made But you're the missing half of the display You were the rhythm, I was the spin Two birds tracing light on feathered limbs Now the forest floor keeps time To a dance that's only mine And the seasons turn, the plumage fades to brown But I'm still dancing in this hollow, hallowed ground Maybe memory's the only paradise we keep Where the vanished ones still move beneath our sleep You were the rhythm, I was the spin Two birds tracing light on feathered limbs Now the forest floor keeps time But you're the pulse beneath the rhyme You were the light I moved within To a dance that's only mine