The Abandoned Landfill

It's the final resting place
Of the detritus of life.
Earth to earth.  Dust to dust.  Just like us.
Mementos, meaningful once
Meaningless now, mingle
With the refuse they have become.

Five diaries, the contents of which
Would have shattered families;
Several letters of apology, never sent,
That might have mended them.

Three fetuses, conceived in love
But birthed in fear and swaddled in shame
When delivered in lonely bathrooms.
Disposed of with varying degrees
Of remorse and relief.

The decaying remains of dead pets,
Loved more than the abandoned babes,
But thrown away when life left them
Unable to fawn, to purr, to please.

A couple dozen scrapbooks,
An armload of high school yearbooks,
Galleries of pictures of family and friends
Once cherished, now forgotten.

A box containing a lifetime of Sunday
Sermons delivered, that elicited
Only indifference.
Three unpublished novels,
Authors' dreams deferred,
Disposed of by their heirs
As so much waste paper.
Many books that were published;
Some enjoyed, now all outdated
Unwanted and discarded.

A bleak perspective perhaps,
But it's hard to be positive when one reads
Of civilizations that have flourished, then faded.
Worlds die, and even Suns give out
Either with a bang or a sigh.

All we love, we cherish,
We yearn for, or to become,
Is but a brief flare of a match
In the ever brooding, all devouring
Onslaught of time, that leads to naught
But oblivion's eternal night.