Nostalgia for the future
Above all else, my past was pleasant.
Whatever wounds have all been sutured.
A different Andrei claimed the present,
so my nostalgia’s for the future.
My youth is gone. I gave my best away,
but there is plenty I could borrow.
I don’t regret what happened yesterday, -
I’m saddened now to spend tomorrow.
I go to work and feel disheartened
returning home. And I’m lamenting,
before the weekend ever started,
because I’m certain it’ll be ending.
Each moment's dear – I underscore now, -
milk everything from each occasion!
Words can’t express – my daughter’s four now –
how proud I’ll feel at graduation!
Her puppy love is still ahead of her,
beyond the bend are wild rapids,
so I keep searching for the metaphor
to capture it before it happens.
I go to sleep and I’m bewildered
to recollect my dream, awaking,
a vision of my great-grandchildren
involved in lives I won’t partake in.
It’s not a race, I’m not so dense
as to pretend I’ll get ahead of it, -
my zest for life is too immense
to make-believe that time’s irrelevant.
The less there is, the more I pine for it,
so I freeze up and watch it waning.
My greatest fear is to arrive in it
to find none of it remaining.