The Glow of Moments Gone

Wouldn’t it be nice

To pause what time is running,

Rewind the moments back a few,

Relive our greatest cunning,

And view with two eyes twice,

More tangible than memories

With nothing there recalled askew,

No misremembered melodies.

Perhaps we’d change a roll of dice

That chanced unluckily before

Or speak the word we’d wished we’d knew,

Which friendship could restore.

Yet in such skill must lie a price

To feel the glow of moments gone:
To stagnate in reliving through

The past, and miss the present dawn.

To spiral in a single slice of momentary gold,

We might mistake what dreams accrue

For those our futures hold.

 

This poem came out of a passing thought I had, about being able to go back in time and relive certain moments, perhaps changing things to what we think would have been better. Maybe there could be value in this, but there might also be danger - both in changing who we are today in ways we might not expect, and in becoming so entranced with reliving the best of our past that we forget the future.