Footsteps

 If footsteps could speak through its echoes,
 Whose departure will it sing?
  
 The pathways are worn now,
 Well-versed in yet another
 Empty bed in the house
 The unfolding of another child
 Wide-eyed armed by this sleepy town
 Of her place in the big world
  
 Sometimes the town is a nursery
 A playground for the future
 Other times, it’s a cemetery --
 Here lie broken dreams,
 Withered passion, burned-out hopes
  
 The town remembers the girl
 They armed to become a woman
 But could not recognize the woman
 Who came to bury the girl
  
 Homecoming is not always a celebration
 A funeral can be rebirth
 And one day in this sleepy town
 Footsteps will fade to whispers
 Their echoes disappearing as
 Stories start all over again, repeating.