Yesterday’s Old Comfortable Coat Poem by Daleen Enslinstrydom

When the mind looses its grip on tomorrow
and goes back in the meadows of yesterday,
far wide and open as the small Karoo
and when today is only a moment
that you want to forget

when loneliness comes and lies in me
like the cold frost,
then it’s easier
to slide back into yesterday.

like a old duffel coat
from my childhood days
and it fits so cosy and perfectly

and the smells of it is so well known
and it’s so comfortable in every seam
without having to make any adjustments
or adaptations
it’s a perfect fit.

Every experience
is burned into
the hard drive of the mind

and no effort is necessary
to relive them again,
to dig them up, to dust them off
and to dream
about those lived moments again.

Like previously taped DVD’s
every movement is so well-known,
worked out and already lived

and like a old comfortable coat
with cosy warm embracing
I go back into the past without any expectations
and the ghosts from yesterday,
I know from face to face

and they are engraved,
programmed to wipe out
all of my expectations of my tomorrows
and the shadow of yesterday
slide right into me.
like a old well-known friend

and now I am no friend of tomorrow
while yesterday remains clinging to me.