Across the Lines of Time
Perhaps now you are on an airplane —
Or in Tango, California,
Or sitting beside your boss at the office,
Or the owner of some vast factory.
It’s been so long since we last met —
Long years,
Thousands of days,
Hundreds of months between you and me.
Those school days —
On the playground, along the neighborhood lanes,
At festivals or in the rain —
How many words we shared, how many stories,
How many playful quarrels!
That oneness we felt has vanished somewhere;
Your once-familiar face
Now drifts like a blur in memory.
Those days grow dim,
Fading at the corners of the mind —
Perhaps you’ve gone far away,
Crossing life’s lines without knowing.
Yet the wish to meet once more, face to face,
Rises strong within me.
Ah, memory — how helpless,
How deeply it aches.
