- No Going Back -

By John Herlihy

We can only go forward, we cannot go back;

Life rides a steady arrow, with no backtrack.

Time’s arrow flies ever onward, never stalls.

As the wind makes way, the arrow never falls.

The first kiss, a lost love, the death of a friend,

Hallmarks of the past that harken of the end.

When we do go back, we soon scurry away,

A door to the past opens briefly, we cannot stay.

The sunlight of my youth, the chill of winter snow,

Rain-soaked grass, the smell of flowers long ago.

Fear of dragon flies, the dreaded sting of the wasp,

All my childhood memories now vanished, puff, lost.

We do attempt to go back in periodic fits of nostalgia,

How I stammered trying to solve problems in algebra.

Cutting the yard grass, the weight of shoveling snow,

Ice skating on a winter pond under night lights that glow.

We think that in going back we might find ourselves again,

To change whatever we did, then do what might have been.

Only to discover we cannot change whatever has been made,

Only to learn whatever has been made cannot be unmade.

- - - - - -

(c) John Herlihy December 2018