Memories

I am having a really hard time at the moment and hit a really low patch today and I don't want to bring you all down with my moan-fests again so I thought I would leave you with a poem. This is one of my favourite poems - it was within my heart for months before it ever came out and when it did I just looked at it in astonishment for it was perfect (as in it expressed everything I wanted it to).

It came to me once when I was out on a bike ride and saw an evening sunset and felt a stirring, a memory of "The good old days with so-and-so" yet they weren't my own memories. So often when I read novels - good novels - I cannot help but feel I have been there and that I know the characters. This is partly what this poem is about. The rest I shall leave for you to take what you will from it for that is what I love most about poetry - the fact that it is personal and every single person takes something completel unique from it.

Enjoy.

Memories

I have these memories
they aren't my own
They tell of times gone by,
years before I ever arrived.

I have feelings of being alive
in another town, another land,
and I can recount the times
when we walked to school
through the long grass
and under the sweltering heat
of an indian summer.

These memories are as clear to me
as if they happened only yesterday,
Yet I have never even lived them once
as I am.

But the evening sky and the babbling brook
all speak to me of summers spent
with you.

And the winter scene outside my window
touches my heart as I remember
how we sat by the fire
those long nights of winters past
and dreamt of reaching the stars
one day.

That day is now, but I do not know you
you are not familiar
and yet, something inside me stirs
as I see you, and remember...

These memories of mine
they may not be my own
but I share them with you.