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“A Sestina on Reminiscing”

by Brian Hartley

Sitting, looking at a lamppost whose light


is precious and pure. Life
returns to me by way of image.
My cares lie not within time,
but in the stark reveries past love
has provoked. I cherish those days.

I remember how that was a time


when innocence caused love.
When one single blink would cause days
to fly past, each leaving its own image
in my mind. When my only light
came from the people in my life.

It was only when I learned to love


that I could understand. Time
is the only teacher, and life
truly exists in the days
we chose to fill with an image
conceived through our own light.

I cannot fathom a life


where there is an absence of light.
Illumination causes a pause in time,
for what other moment is there for love?
You cannot find an emotion so pure in days,
but in the captured moment of an image.

Nostalgia fills me up from those days


as I stare at that lamppost, holding an image
of my late father. I never truly understood the love
he had for me, but the radiance of his light
shined down and brightened my life.
What I would give to get back that time.

The sun rises as I attempt to image


my future, to hint on the days
ahead. My face is bathed in sunlight,
the warmth is the beginning of my life.
I know now not to concern with time,
for nothing else matters when I have love.

I have time because of those days,


I have love because of that image,
I have life because of the light.

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