homework w/e 9/5/11 - DREAMS WRITTEN IN STARLIGHT

[Maureen K Clifford]

DREAMS WRITTEN IN STARLIGHT

There’s poignancy if going back to places you remember
from your childhood for you realize that nothing is the same.
Things that you thought big are smaller, things that scared you now seem harmless
and the humour that you saw then would now render you insane.

We all tend to think of yesterday as being so much better
which it probably wasn’t really, it just seems so in our dreams.
And as age creeps on us all and touches us with icy fingers
we remember youth and youthfulness, stolen – or so it seems.

We can run in circles endlessly like hamsters on a wheel
going nowhere much but staying quite within our comfort zone,
or we can go to different places and inhabit different spaces
leave the old familiar faces for a while safely at home.

For dreams are written in starlight, on the blackboard of heaven
and we see them just before we drift to sleep at night.
Though they may not be etched in fire upon our very psyches
they are something that we yearn for when the moment is just right.

But that moment may not come my friend, the stars may not align
in the heavens to give you the optimal time or place.
‘Carpe diem’ should be your motto along with ‘to hell with tomorrow’.
Grab life now, no future’s promised, grasp it firm in your embrace.

Maureen Clifford © 04/11