Time's Bitter Flood (To A.M.C. A True Friend) Poem by Martin Patrick McCarthy

Proudly, vainly, prophetically, I imagined to see
A horrible rend between us that time could not mend.
The indignation of the Ages has settled upon me
That very day I was no longer your friend.
Imagination gets the best of me; my 'vision' came to be.

And I would give all that I have gained to be wrong...
To have been wrong. I was too busy being right;
Too content, too arrogantly sold to my visionary sight
To ever consider being wrong. But in the wrong I belong.

I believed our friendship had the deepest root,
But Time's bitter flood managed to wash it all away.
We've taken different roads, but still I want to say...
And to say... what's to say? The point is moot.

We look up to the same sky and dream...

I dream that one day, you can forgive me
For my foolish, self-indulgent, self-fulfilling prophecy.

(31 March 1997)