Retrospect

(An observation on the irrelevance of things
that were once both important and beautiful).

Cold bedclothes strewn, abandoned parachutes
occasionally billow in rhythm to
this winter chill in summer’s sun.
I drift back to the reality of a day
from the smoking tallow of a night
blinking quickly, thinking slowly.
There the door awaits, open for me to fall through
once again bringing all my uncollected baggage
to stack neatly on your mat.
We were all beautiful once but didn’t know,
then, unhindered by regrets and
without the knowledge of the life to come.
Behind our banal conversations
we hear those old songs that
were the wallpaper of our past,
now abused in advertisements for goods
we’ll never need or want.
Now sadness for those wondrous never-ending days,
when touching flesh, hearing words and seeing love
rebounding from your lovely eyes
was all that mattered.


© Graham Sherwood 7/2011