You must remember this –
How in our student days
We used to sit and talk
About how to put the world to rights.
Tongues loosened at the end of the day
With a golden pint of best at our elbow
And we were little more than teenagers then,
Drunk with the elixir of life
And innocence.
Where was experience?
We knew so little then, and thought we knew it all
Simplicity masked a thousand sins,
Roads not yet travelled,
Lessons not yet learned.

Twenty-five years later,
Viewed through the mist of years –
Was it that long ago?
If we were to meet again –
Middle-aged, more contented, still questioning -
We would be older, wiser,
Maybe sadder, maybe happier.

Once we used to dance ourselves.
(Remember the days of the air guitar?)
Oh how we shook our hair.
Now we just shake our heads at the young –
The people we used to be,
Clenching our fists in silent envy,
Cursing that we never put the brakes on time.
But one day, they’ll be the people
We are now. So the wheel turns.

Perhaps we might still be the same.
Maybe the patina of those years would fall away,
Melt like dew
In the midday sun.

Some days they will be telling us
That recollection
Is the new rock’n’roll.

Written in 2002, thinking about friendships from my student days