Photo circa 1970

Known Through the Years
By John Herlihy

When you are young, it doesn’t matter,
Everyone knows you through the years.
They knew you an as infant in diapers;
They remember your childhood mementos.
They knew you when you were first kissed;
You called them when you felt they were missed.
Old friends attended your university graduation;
Distant relatives responded to your salutation.
They attended your first and even second wedding;
When children came, they sent you cradle bedding.
The thread linking the years, steady friends around;
They knew things about you that makes you sound.
With understanding, they followed my tribulations;
Many of them helped, even against my protestations.
There is comfort in knowing people your whole life.
Bringing continuity to the table thru all of life’s strife.

As you age, regrettably, it does begin to matter;
Some people only knew you after becoming fatter.
The line that connects us begins to get thinner;
Few of us became saints, more than a few sinners.
All those childhood friends are now long since gone,
Living different lives and singing a different song.
Gone are those with whom I made first holy communion;
I am not one to attend the 50th-year high school reunion.
University friends dispersed into their various careers;
I know one of them ended up having a family in Algiers.
I ended up living in a multitude of different countries;
Strangers became friends for a time in the 70s, 80, and 90s.
By the millennium, nobody knew me for who I really am;
Not a single person knew me from the days in my pram.

I have a picture of myself from my 20s that I show to people;
Sipping coffee in a Spanish plaza, in the shadow of a steeple
In winter, looking stylish and young, holding a felt fedora,
A long and unexpected life before me, waiting for mañana.