The Box

What lies within the box, unseen,  
a token lost, a thought pristine?  
Or merely air, a void serene?  

Does it hold time, a clock unwound,  
a moment trapped, a silence found?  
Or echoes lost where none astound?  

Could it be dreams of lives once led,  
flickering ghosts a life long dead?  
Or hopes unwoven, stitched with thread?  

Might it contain the stars of yore.  
The cosmos bound behind this door?  
Infinity within its core?  

Or is it but the simplest guise,  
a trick played out before our eyes?  
To make us seek where nothing lies?  

Perhaps it holds no grand display.  
Just mundane things, a child's dismay,  
A lesson lost in life's ballet.  

Could it be truth, the ultimate key,  
unfolding depths of mystery?  
Or truth that’s gone a fallacy?  

Maybe it waits for hands to dare,  
to break its seal, to strip it bare.  
The whisper’d cost. A soul’s despair.  

And yet we ask, we yearn, we pine  
to solve the riddle cross the line,  
To claim the spark: "This box is mine."  

But does it matter what's inside?  
The question burns, it won’t subside.  
For curious hearts the world’s too wide.  

Pandora's hands, so soft, so frail,  
unlatched the box, released the wail...
The world would turn to be her jail.