Vestiges Of Time Poem by Bill Galvin

I rode this road before…
Many times…
Same look, same feel, same presence,
Same smell, same sentiment…
Same scene, same Spring… a long time ago.

I don't mean that I physically was here before;
Although, I was… but, that's not it…
And it's not déjà vu…
And I'm not referring to the last incarnation of my life,
When my role was husband, father, friend, and soulmate;
But, one of my first… years before that…
When I was husband, father, outsider, and stranger.

I am not here that often, this neighborhood;
But, today must be a confluence of flowing fragments…
With relics of memory freely floating…
With emphatic echoes of long-forgotten melodies.

It's the deeply buried impression of that time,
Re-appearing, with darkness looming,
Like the dim, distant, unreachable porch light,
Seen so far away upon the forested hillside…
A heart meandering around unfamiliar paths below,
Within its latest wilderness.

5-23-2016