Old School Scrapbook Poem by Bill Galvin

Pictorial memories of simpler times…

High school photos signed with joyous pen, with buoyant release;
Permanent reminder to look back and remember "us";
The group… a herd, a pack, a flock, a bevy, a gaggle, a cluster;
When they were back there, learning about life together,
As classmates, group-trip mates, school-play mates, shipmates,
Teammates, study mates, teenaged time-navigators;
Semi-mature prom adventurers, stiffly posing in pretty rented duds;
With hope and yearning for a future of successes.

Then, Life happens.

So, this book of village news articles of sports achievements;
These pages filled with young, hopeful faces,
Signed with words of thankfulness, of confident optimism;
This scrapbook from a chapter of one's earliest part of life…
It means not much to anyone but ourselves,
As we reflect on an earlier incarnation of our lives,
As we look back every 10 years or so.

And, as we age, this book ages with us.

It can be a benchmark…
By which we measure our progress.

It can be a touchstone…
With which we test the preciousness of the amalgam of our Life.

When we go, and are reduced to earthly elements,
This, and all our other memory books, will return to dust, also;
As, they are of no use to anyone but us;
Hopefully, having provided the perspective we needed,
During its and our time here.

3-7-2016