Not Yet Poem by Patti Masterman

Lost beauty of fallen days, where did you go?
Grace of the disappearing past
Can it really be we can never return

Your wistful face holds a reflection
Through the window glass at me
Enticing me to come outside, have a look

Perhaps find again some vision I could recognize:
A bench, or a bird bath; a person
From the distant past, or a little child man or woman

I want to go and sit in the late sunset, beside you
Watch the clouds form shapes, in our mutual reverie
Find unusual birds to talk about, on their migrations

Even the silence blessed us then; saying nothing
Hanging in stillness, a huge gift; familiarity of combined years
Our bodies molecules intermingled from long association

Being master of all I survey doesn't satisfy
Because the ones I most would have shared it with
Have gone away by now

Blown away like fall leaves, somewhere too far to travel yet
Or else sprouted wings like a chrysalis
To fly where I've never been, even in my imagination

We never suspect these are the good old days
Until they have already vanished; gone forever
Why did we think they would never end

And in the future, I know someone will think of me, and sigh
And stand long before a window, in silence, and watch, listen and wait
Wish fervently, for the way things used to be

Even if just for a day, an hour, one single shining moment
Of blissful peace: but then I have to smile, at that thought
Because they can't know it yet.