Bookends

Page to page, the paper flies.
Past one story and another,
The pages are sent whistling into the wind.

The pages are dark with small words scrawled,
The ink of past memories now gone,
Their flourishes so small now windswept memories.

Once a tome of great importance,
This lone volume is stripped bare.
All but a few scant pages remain.

I try to catch the pages
As they scatter into the wind,
But they disappear from my sight.

The pages in my grasp are torn and tattered,
But alas they are the only ones that remain
For me to recall at a later day.

I do not mourn the loss of the other pages.
In time they will find joys with another.
I will rejoice instead in the memories still in hand.

What else are we to do when things are scattered to the winds
Than to take our book of memories and keep grasp of its bookends?