Waves upon the shore

Into the receding dark, we each must slip away.
There is no clock made but holds this promise
tucked between its hands.

And when night comes, whose day we did not meet;
when others toast their glasses,
but too much dust hides the sound
from buried ears,

What do we tell the encroaching oblivion?
of chances lost, of tales untold,
and places never seen?

There comes in the end the final death;
when even those who remember us pass on,
and all our works and words
are but waves upon the shore.