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.