A Waste of Time

I don’t want to waste your time,

but now that you are here

we must try to think of a way.

To think of a way of not forgetting.

Not the dead necessarily, but the out-of-touch.

Friends from our youth, grown old as we have,

living in homes we shall never visit.

Sheila Cunningham is now almost forgotten.

As is Brian Quinn who joined the navy.

Tom and Nancy, are they still together?

Did it work out for Terry in Australia?

If we were to meet what would we say,

those old pals and girlfriends consigned

to the clouding cataract of memory?

(Poetry there, getting in the way.)

Better we don’t. Better we stay as we are,

where, hands above its head,

the Present shuffles towards a Future,

tight-lipped and impatient.

Rather, let us peer into the Past occasionally

and wish each other well.

I am wasting your time, I can tell.