January: Year-day 9

        
                                         
                                                     
January: Year-day 9
                                                       
All the sad remembrances, yours/ and mine.
"The past is past", they say.  Why then can't we--?
Or if you think you can, why then can't I--?
They never pass, though hidden by the screen
of their occurrences; they just become
harder to see: all those sad remembrances,
the further time takes one, the further some
new passion elevates one from where one was.
                                                        
And yet if they were not, and did not . . . times
stab us, the possibilities of growth
would be more sorrowfully the less, would
maybe never be.  Swallows ring the chimes
at Capistrano.  Memories bring both
highs and lows.  How we'd change some, if we could!
                                                        
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