To Apologize After All These Years? Poem by Shalom Freedman

To apologize after all these years
To a woman I haven’t seen in forty years
Seems senseless.

We have each had our own lives and loved ones-
And do not know each other anymore-

Yet the thought that I was unkind
To someone who would have been kind to me
Troubles still-

Just as the memory of her beauty in those days
Is Longing in me and
Saddens me with the thought of how we both look now.

We are old people now
And it is all so far away
Even our un-kindnesses
Must go to the grave.