Can we ever really know what others feel?
The long years of our lives stretch behind us;
all those moments that were so real.
And you lived each one; impaled
on those very moments and feelings.
All gone now.
And all, only yours now, in vague memories.
So, we come to death after hoping all of our lives
to have arrived and to have been delivered
from the transient – and yet, it is all transient.
All that we held dear was, and is, just ours alone.
A changing movie that we just had bit parts in
as it progressed and evolved.
All this is so much easier to see, now, here at the end
than is was at the beginning
when we thought that delivery
from the transient was still possible.
At best, we can love and share
part of our individual journeys;
seeing each other and touching each other
in those frames of our movies that we share.
For now, while the sweeping sands of time and change
collect around our shuffling feet
and the weathered lines gather on our faces,
we can only wait for each other to disappear.
When I hug the one I love, I am gathering us into this moment,
into the sweet timeless feeling space of ‘now’ to forget
that the world doesn’t love the transient
as much as we love the world.
Gallagher
25May24
Toronto