Reunion

Old friends,

Old memories.

Recollections too faint to perceive clearly

Meander like leviathans

Beneath deliberate thinking.

I recognize you,

Or do I?

I knew you fifty years ago,

Or did I?

What I know

And don’t know

Contend for supremacy.

But neither prevails,

And the silhouettes circle

Down in my mind

Where I see imperfectly.

Come up;

Come up and visit me;

Or let me dive down to visit you.

But there is no means to penetrate

All those opaque years

While we drink our beer and tell our stories.

II

To know is precious;

And to be known,

Just as precious.

And here, with each other again,

We are both

Known and unknown

Looking, half-seeing,

Filled with quiet compassion for

Life’s great complexities.

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