School Friends (Poetry)
18th May 2014
For GB and TA
Do they remember me as clearly as I remember them? —
Our fresh-faced trio of average high school girls
full of teenage energy and dreams...
I wonder if they ever think of me at all —
picture how we were as friends back then
before fate directed how our lives would be.
It is quite likely both are grandmothers by now —
a little wrinkled — time-worn — silver-haired, perhaps
and living in retirement somewhere far...
I’ve no contact since — no notion where they are
but recall that last day in summer 1967
our leaving echo wistful as a bell.
Did we promise (like so many) to keep in touch?
We didn’t. Now it’s more than forty years
and ageing has me brooding over-much.
Nostalgia keeps us safe the way we were.
Do they remember me as clearly as I remember them? —
Our fresh-faced trio of average high school girls
full of teenage energy and dreams...
I wonder if they ever think of me at all —
picture how we were as friends back then
before fate directed how our lives would be.
It is quite likely both are grandmothers by now —
a little wrinkled — time-worn — silver-haired, perhaps
and living in retirement somewhere far...
I’ve no contact since — no notion where they are
but recall that last day in summer 1967
our leaving echo wistful as a bell.
Did we promise (like so many) to keep in touch?
We didn’t. Now it’s more than forty years
and ageing has me brooding over-much.
Nostalgia keeps us safe the way we were.