After a Trip

You look at your pictures back home from a trip And somehow it doesn’t quite seem You really were there, with that smile on your face – You’d swear it was only a dream. Yet there is the proof, in each pose you peruse – The scenery gorgeous and clear. The photos are tip of the iceberg, somehow – The same goes for each souvenir. You cannot recapture the way that you felt – Sensations each sight did provoke; Vacations, like dreams, are quite real when you’re there But returning, they vanish like smoke. You print up the pictures or fashion a book And do all you can do to remember; Each image, like fire, though, once so intense, In the end fades away to an ember.