A fretful mind unstilled as yet
Can't pinpoint memory
Of old joy, pain held close to heart
And yet let go again.
Why can't I capture you anew
Old story lived through, kind?
Why won't you come back, visit me,
Return, for once, to mind?
Lived through the situation
That I now can't recall
Lived through and then forgotten
A friendly lie, that's all.
I'm old and gray, I know it well:
No secret it's of mine.
My memory is, however, faint
My story it won't find.
Again I stare into kind eyes
Beckoning me to speak,
To answer question braced at me
To tell my secret deep.
But can't recall, try as I might
To dig out memory.
This slip of mind, my constant friend
Why won't you bypass me?
Where did you go?
When did you leave?
Not able to recall.
It is as though I never lived,
Stumbled before the fall.
And still you stand in front of me,
Familiar eyes on me
You smile quite kindly, comforting,
Knowing what I can't see.
(c) 2017Iris B. Struller