Footsteps

Do you hear them?
Slowly descending those stairs?
Relentlessly taking the same path?
Do you feel the vibrations of these footsteps resounding on creaking wood?
These footsteps are a memory,
a moment of life engraved in time for infinity.
A person has descended these few steps, you see,
long ago, and his presence is felt.
Although it's only footsteps, nothing dangerous in this case,
They give you chills, lift your arm hair.
When they make themselves heard, the atmosphere changes, it becomes heavy,
You're scared and uncomfortable and the air turns icy,
when it is only a sound on a parquet floor,
A print of time in a place
where others have been before.
There is nothing to do there, that's how it is.
And maybe in a few years,
it will be our footsteps that will be resounding,
frightening in passing, involontarily, the peace of the living.
- Sam Berry