Ah, Retrospect...

 Victoria and her cousin Jasmine; then 2, now 13...

Ah retrospect, Thou thing of thought which wanders silently

The streets where once we dashed and stirred its dust with eager feet

Immutable mosaic only you and I can see

Your company of memories a swan-song bittersweet

Ah retrospect, we cannot build upon imagery

And yet, life’s taste-touch echoes line your walls of painted air

We smile and weep as we behold Time’s mute menagerie

For mind’s eye cannot blind itself to thought-art hanging there

…the winter we were seventeen, the summer that we saw

While our arms were loaded with first-fruits of middle-age

Mortality revealed; for Time will never bend its law

And suddenly we tread with awe its swift four-season stage

The coursing of a tide beyond our reach trembles within

Ah retrospect, we cannot stay too long to revel where

The Now we hold soon passes through its microscopic lens

To furnish one more picture frame we hang upon the air

© Janet Martin  

A Song for my nostalgic mood;)