Spoken Word Ballad
I Hear the Footsteps
A reflective spoken-word meditation on mortality, memory, and the fragile bridges we build through art and language.
I Hear the Footsteps
Verse 1
I hear the footsteps, steady as the tide,
and so I write, each line a plank I lay,
to build a bridge, a slender span to cross,
for when my time here fades and slips away.
Verse 2
I hammer words like nails to hold the boards,
press syllables like stones beneath my feet—
though narrow is the path, I build and build,
a bridge of letters stretching toward the dark.
Verse 3
A bridge across this quiet place,
where few have trod, where tall reeds grow
in tide’s pool, still as glass, so calm and clear.
I build so others may follow, though I know
none will, and mine are the only steps
this lonely bridge was ever meant to bear.
Verse 4
The steps draw close now, nearer than my breath;
each page I turn, each line I leave behind,
a fading echo, hope’s faint undertow—
yet still, I write, my passage carved in ink.
Verse 5
The words, the verses, wooden planks laid down—
they’ll last a bit, not long as steel or stone,
but for a time they cross the span I see,
and bear my weight, though time wears them thin.
Verse 6
And though the boards will splinter, fall away,
the fact remains—they once were mine, they held.
They will not stand forever, yet here I am,
carving my story into air and earth.
Verse 7
Proud they spanned the space while I had voice—
a fragile bridge to say I passed this way.
And maybe that’s enough—to know my feet
once trod these words, that something I made remained,
...if just for a little while.