- Moments That Will Never Pass -

By John Herlihy

Certain moments in life we hope will never vanish in the past,

Moments of such intensity that you wish they will forever last.

One’s wedding day, high school graduation, first communion,

Nor should we forget our first kiss, first love, first lasting union.

There are minutes, hours, days of my life that simply disappear,

Gone as if they never happened, lost in time, never to reappear.

Certain things have their moment in time, gone they should be,

If all of life needed to be memorable, where would it leave me.

Moments we expect to remember have a way of slipping away,

We think we will never forget them, and yet they never do stay.

With our joys or sorrows, emotions get lost in the folds of time,

Surge in our minds, they peak in our hearts, as sad or sublime.

Then, we abandon events in our lives we simply wish to forget,

Our wrong-doings, lack of consideration, unkindness we regret.

Still after five years, or after ten, with the sure passage of time,

Large swarths of my life are gone that I can no longer call mine.

Each one of my beloved infants are with me, I dream of them still,

If I now see my children, I remember the baby in them, always will.

I smile as I remember those little feet cupped tenderly in my hands,

The one blessed thing I remember among thousands of reprimands.

Because of the demands of time and the past that time will set,

There are treasured memories we hold onto we will never forget.

Certain moments in life we will never let disappear into the past,

Sacred moments of such intensity that we know will forever last.

- - - - - -

(c) John Herlihy December 2018