It Comes in Stages

When we were children
We would lay out on the grass,
The sky wheeling far above us,
Feeling the motion of the earth,
Imagining
We would be launched into the stars.

We sat in your backyard as teenagers,
Listening to the wind howl through the broken trees.
I heard the mournful call of ghosts,
While you attempted to draw out their silhouettes
From the branches stenciled into the sky.

We stand now, adults, feet firmly planted,
Our faces turned towards the ground,
Measuring distances, time and relationships,
Calling it all vanity,
Vanity.