Last updated on February 8, 2017
How clear the lens of retrospect
illuminates the distant past,
and brings in focus now, so fast,
foolish acts we’d rather neglect.
It is not always a kindness,
this sharpness of review;
one can easily misconstrue
an earlier bliss as blindness,
and waste so much precious time now
justifying a lack of sense
or imagining a defense,
forgetting not just when, but how
we came to learn from our mistakes.
What we are is what resulted;
and each time the fragile heart breaks,
future selves are not consulted.
No wonder then, this glass is so clear;
its academic and dry glare
sees history as cold and bare,
and stumbles forward, its eyes rear.
16 AUG 2003