Ireland's OWN Poetry and Prose

The Abyss of Then
—by Gardiner M. Weir

There are so many!
I read their names in a letter of a friend from home
And try to link the faces of fifty-one years ago when we were students,
Faces I had forgotten.

I read the letter again and again and remember the joy of being young.
Who could tell what each of us would one day become.
Life is so very strange!
I had no idea of where my future lay, nor they of theirs.

I stare into the abyss of then.
Tom is dead! He drank!
Dick became a teacher. Somewhere! Heaven knows!
And Harry a politician knighted several years ago. For what?
The letter does not tell.

And the many others? Who would have thought?
And I?
I chose adventure and traveled the world, a corporate gadabout.
Fifty-one years. Almost fifty-two.
Retired with a pension and memories I hang upon the wall.

I read their names written on the pages of home as it was back then.
I see our faces when we were young, full of life and hope.
And I see mine now.
The mirror cannot even squeeze a smile at an old man,
He, too, forgotten,
In the abyss of then.