Resolute residues

Sometimes I ponder my legacy

picturesque footprints in beach sand
casually, photogenically left behind,
impulsively signed with flotsam stick
left to the whim of waves, rising tides?

Existence as an Etch-A-Sketch

frozen in time via cataclysmic event
fossilization rendering me ancient
to a distant archeological future?

I cannot say

Hearts, initials clandestinely written
whimsically defacing still curing walkway
enduringly placed with smiling subterfuge
to the chagrin of morning-returning mason
unrepaired, left for future viewers to puzzle
over chunky, puzzling, neo-hieroglyphics
quirky, horizontal Stonehenge

neither pictogram,
though oddly considered spontaneous
suffice as monument,
each being ironically composed of the
same base material
one lacking only the binding agent

Either trod upon, unnoticed pathway rune
or eventually unearthed as a curious relic
I’ll have left something to be found
even though not truly lost

– Mark Lucker