BOOK OF YESTERDAYS

I made a list of dreams of mine
Knowing that one day in time
I would see them all fulfilled
For I was young and life was still
Exciting and fresh and full of things
Whose very substance are the core of dreams.

Each day I wrote in my little book
And at past entries I never looked.
For each new day held new surprises
And I always looked for tomorrow’s horizons.
Oh! But somewhere along life’s road of mountains
Dreams for the future, I stopped counting.

My little book became neglected
Tossed aside and then forgotten.
It found me today. It touched my hand.
As if to remind me, “Here I am”.
It wanted my care. It called for my attention.
So I opened its covers for close inspection.

At first I sat, amazed and in awe,
As the posting of entries, I recalled.
Something wet! A tear on my face!
I reached for a pen, new writings to make.
I realized that I’ve become much to old
To dream of tomorrow and all that it holds.
Instead of a book of dreams that once I had made,
It now had become a Book of Yesterdays.

A list of things that I’d never see
A list of all the places that I’d never be.
I began to mark through them, one by one.
I marked through them all, until I was done.
I sobbed aloud in deep remorse
For that part of me, that I had lost.
Knowing deep, down inside my soul
I could never regain the time that was gone.

All those tomorrows had become yesterdays,
Promises all broken along life’s way.
Dreams were now memories that haunted with pain
Tormenting my mind, as I sat there in shame.
In a hurried frenzy, and blinded by tears,
I ripped to shreds, the words of yesteryear.
I set to flame all words that I had wrote.
I watched
Silent and still
As they disappeared in the smoke.

Leah Wilson © 2006 < Tybee Island >