EVERYTHING IS GOOD AGAIN

We flip through the pages
of this photo album, looking at these
neatly preserved, happy memories—
the smiles, the arms slung over the shoulders,
the light in the peoples’ eyes. They don’t tell
the full story, but they do recall those good days.
There were some bad ones too,
but only mental pictures for those, for our own recall.
They’re important too.

Even standing in the queue
on the threshold of a great change.
We all come to that point some day.
Sometimes we get to come back to the place
where these happy images appear, and everything
is good again, even when it wasn’t bad before.

Some have soft light, with one person,
someone would try to keep things quiet.
And whatever is taken out to sea
now belongs to it. When you put them all together
you can hear them say: “And there was a time
when you loved me. And there was a time
you loved me no more.”

(10 August 2007)