Nostalgia

I long for people who have gone,

Picture them in my mind

Retrieve their gestures, voice, something said, someone,

Quickly search for their photographs,

Letters full of their autographs,

Friends, cousins, uncles and aunts,

Those with whom I laughed

And joked and quarreled

They are all there in a video

Of a marriage long ago

That revives their memories

As if they were here, those moments

Captured for eternity as I join them

From the present into the past;

I pause it to watch

Them dance and jest

And rewind to refresh the moments again

So full of life and health and cheer,

The list grows longer and longer, the pain

As I last beyond their years

And they return in my dreams

Till I wake up at last

And find they are only memories

Of people who once were so real;

Maybe I have lived too long

As most of those I knew

Have left and are gone.

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