The Past Poem by Stanley Coffin

In those solitary moments of silence my mind wanders back to another time,
A time when we were full of vision and drive and there was so much we wanted to do and that we felt so alive,
This was also a time when we were filled with passion and hope for the days ahead,
Here I sit contemplating what could have been instead,
But somewhere sometime in the midst of it all, unbeknown to us it or we changed and it became a different reality,
For I wonder when it was that we became a little lost and different to who we thought we would be,
Where was that moment when we let go and looked away,
I pause to consider also when it was that our dreams became just a distant memory,
At that time we were young and we had that feeling of having forever to decide, decisions that need not be made today but decisions that could be left for another day,
Then with the whittling away of time those decisions about our dreams became lost in our yesterdays,
It's not that our dreams weren't realised but more that without realising they'd slipped away,
Pausing to wonder and reflect about those moments in our life when change, without our noticing happens,
Not that it was necessarily bad but just that it became different to the dreams we had,
Lost years and lost dreams it disappears so quickly it seems,
One moment a thought for tomorrow the next we cast a glance over our shoulder at another long gone unrealized dream,
From where I sit my thoughts are less about regret and more to do with the things that I forgot,
And I'm intrigued by those obscure little moments when the pendulum shifts just a degree or two and with the passing years the changes that eventually become you.