If we go back for a different reason,
Does it become a different place?
It may as well be: nothing much has
Changed, but I will see things in
A new way, notice what I missed before
While looking the other way.

Even the simple act of facing
The other way will make a difference:
The end will be the beginning, while
The old centrepiece will be merely
A means to another end,
A way to get from one random place
To another, the same to me as
It always was to everyone else.

The decline will be impossible
To ignore, but I will do my best,
Don my finest rose tints, remember
How much better it all was
When my life was much worse.

For everything looks different because
These are not the same eyes that
Surveyed the nondescript landscape
And looked away: they are possibly wiser,
Definitely older, and at least somewhat
More open to the beauty that exists
In places where most never look.

07/31/2022

Posted on 08/14/2022
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