Remembrances

It is evening and you are four,
Walking in your nightgown
To see the golden, gleaming moon.

It is morning and you are sixteen,
Scribbling a prayer in vivid blue ink
Beside the dew drenched field.

It is twilight and you are ten,
Jumping and sliding in thick mud
While night-swallows swoop by.

It is afternoon and you are seven,
Running in your bathing-suit
Beneath the gutters gushing rain.

It is barely light and you are fourteen,
Sighing with simple delight
As you wake and warm the piano.

It is midnight and you are eighteen,
Swinging with happy eyes shut
'Neath stars and a trembling tree.

It is June and you are twenty-one,
Writing remembrances by lamp light
To keep away forgetting.

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