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
