AND THERE I FIND THE CHANGE IN ME

It's strange to look at a place

and taken with a sudden memory

say to oneself "This is how it looked

like in 1982" or "How it has changed

since 1983". So many decades

and I feel unchanged myself,

not looking back at strangers

estranged in time,

sharing only name,

counting my existence

from some event separating us,

but unity stretching through time

as in the places I encounter again,

and have come to believe

that all the people I thought old

and wizened by their long years

having gone through

the metamorphosis of life,

felt the same, a continuity of being

little changed by the long eroding years,

and part of me griefs for them

who wouldn't have had the words to express it

and for myself who didn't understand then.

And there I find the change in me.

14.11.2025