5/30 The Version Where I Arrived Sooner

Rewriting Memory

Some three decades later, it haunts me in some way

I can still see the scene and scenario clear as day

Missed chances can taunt us in that constant replay

But even then, I knew the exact words to say

Yet now, in the version where I arrived sooner

Our talk would have had a little more depth

Even though I was young with that sense of humor

There was a passion in me that had quite the breadth

Maybe it was because I was so young and naïve

At the time there were endless possibilities

Then again in those days I didn’t really perceive

That the sail through life wasn’t going to be a breeze

It was some years later when I stood at that place

The old wood bench felt like it was the fork in the road

But had I arrived sooner we would have embraced

Now it’s just a memory preserved in this ode