ode to all forgotten

I can't remember you.
I can only remember how you felt, cool on my skin,
The way you waved in the night,
like nothing blown through wintering pines.
I can't remember you,
You many lost hours
Which I, as a child,
Spent doing
I don't remember what.
Forgive me, lost hours, when I cannot resist
the urge to envision
trenches dug in sandboxes
which the Good Lord saw fit to stricken
from existence before they began.
Forgive me when I remember
the glistening gray arch of a land-drowning whale,
her silence when I touched her, dying
on a beach that never was.

After so many promises,
Forgive me
for never coming back,
For remembering her,
And forgetting all of you.