This rumination came from growing awareness of my mortality which, in turn, is generated and measured by the expanding list of things once given or assumed that, alas, are no longer possible.

 

The Mirror

How shall I talk to you, my friend?

How should I regard you

(and will I care)

as you grow ever older before my gaze

while I stay young?

 

Who are you? Dare I look on your face?

(You've certainly changed

since first I filled your eyes

with tears for slipping memories,

and losing games). Or is that

too much pain to bear?

 

The river flows much quicker now,

and so it goes; no help for that …

I'm onward bound upon its strand,

watching the journey's fire ticking down.

I'll wait for you; I'm always here,

 

but remember this: keep a mirror near,

and you who leave me a little more

each year

can look behind and see, with eyes still bright,

the one you are, and the one you were,

and be tranquil in the shadow of your tender light.

 

Chris Hubbard

Perth

2018