I Want To See All The People/I Knew In My Childhood Poem by Shalom Freedman

I don't know why today
But I want to go back
I want to see all the people
I knew in my childhood
Not just my family
But all the friends and neighbors
All the children I went to school with
I want to see how they are
How they look now
But even more
I want to see them
As I saw them then
As they looked then
I want to see them again
And I never will of course
Except for the faded memory images
I have in my mind now
I will never see them again
I will never be there again
And I will never know again
What it just felt like to be there with them
It's all gone
And I will soon be gone too
And my not having what I want
Is not something new either
But reality
Reality as it is now
And soon will not be
Forever.