On Looking Back...

Heart-pangs of pain and pleasure clash

For feet can never run

To touch once more the gilded sash

Of past that time has spun

How subtle is the silver sweep

Of moments as they flow

Futile the fold of fist to keep

What Time cannot bestow

…but every now and then it seems

We wander down its track

To linger in its lost daydreams

As we stand, looking back

The way of life runs ever to

The setting of the sun

No returning to exchange hues

Of day when it is done

Time’s moment-mercy ruthlessly

Inhales life’s quickened hour

Reminding us mortality

Is brief as grass or flower

The trails of retrospect compete

With echoes fierce and tender

See how the dueling bittersweet

Falls in sun-shadow splendor

Heart pangs of pain and pleasure merge

A surge of want and wonder

Yet even now new moments splurge

To satisfy Time's hunger

© Janet Martin

O memory! Thou midway world

‘Twixt earth and paradise

Where things decayed and loved ones lost

In dreamy shadows rise 

Abraham Lincoln…from the poem Memory