Time Travellers

Perhaps we are time travellers all
sojourners on a windy road that swings
from darkness to light and back again.

We crash headlong, womb warm
into the bright and the cold
of course we wail at the shock.
Then we open eyes,
see, breathe, and become.
So the journey begins
and we find the many selves
as cloaks to don:
son, daughter, brother or sister,
father, mother, friend and lover.

We may run ahead, or lag behind,
tiptoe, stumble, drag feet or nimbly negotiate;
but walk we all, travel companions through time
on that endless journey home.
Then come one day, as it must,
when in a flash, or after an age
we step through veils unseen
beyond hours, days, years,
through a blinding flash
or a deepening gloom
and all at once
we find ourselves in another place.

If for a moment you've lost my face
or missed my voice in the here and now,
take heart:
look back and you will see me still
looking as I've always done:
smile, frown, play or pass,
doing it all in my own peculiar way.
I'm still there and will always be
unaged, beloved, immutable.

Don't stay your feet, or let heart grow cold
at the momentary void that once was me;
for I've only run on, so eager to know
the mystery of destination.
Look up and see that beyond the turn
in the next instant, a blink
round the curve of the road
there I am, in wait
the very same me
but where the day won't end,
where laughter will be
our neverending reunion song.