Memory is such a guileful thing, And now I watch it like a doorway closing, Or a mist along a shore that’s darkening, Revealing less, and more in fog enclosing.
A pleasant thing if we could walk again The many steps that made us come together; There went the grace that did surround us then? The beloved sometimes now becomes a stranger.
Now memory walks along the ledge of time, Stirring in the deep uncertain past, Mixing up a songbook with a rhyme And calling friends across the fading vast.
Yet we remember what the future was, Though the way back to the past be forgotten, What was to be, comes as clearly back to us As a rainbow, or the sound of distant cannon.
Paul Gallagher is a poet, translator and also an economics journalist. He lives in Virginia with his wife. He has spent much of his life fighting for the revival of classical poetry and classical culture. See more of his poetry here.