I Shall Not Come Home Again

(Reflections on A College Reunion) Too much of loveliness enfolds the ground I walked in youth, again in age, and I shall soon lie down beneath it as my spirit wafts above its art in clear salute to mind's eternal joy. Too much, I stand upon the edge of a regret I do not wish to re-explore, though I did not succomb. Old flowers would sigh with me, and speak of gravamen that memory could not restore to light, of crusted wounds I had ignored for years, then strange in their emergence would leave their ghostly shouting in my ears. Yet I had smiled politely as I watched the curious melange of student mirth among the pretense of a mellowed age which walked beside them for that shred of while last weekend... and that inside a host of smiles that flashed around in vain denial of a fiercer truth. The time was beautiful inside that frail transparent shell of grace that comes with blessed rarity, and I departed with a heart and mind in dialogue upon dualities that never should appear, but drum upon the tympanum of my perspective on a world I caused to change two generations past, and now impart a flavor in diminuendo, a seasoning refreshed, more newly wise and in finality, more spacious in its love. ~