The Old Familiar Faces Poem by Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

It's a long road to come
from seventeen and scared
to thirty odd and counting.
It's a long hard road
paved with sliding rules
and passed milestones
and unremembered anniversaries.
Desk diaries littered with cruel reminders;
friends I never see
and promises broken before they were made.
Here and there a scribbled note;
a jotted down reminder of the roads
not taken, sometimes not even glimpsed
and through it all
a handful of names
like the solid, recurring bass note of a drum
beating like a heart.