Spheres of life
We gaze back through
As one might lift a concave lens,
Casting images in an outward spiral
That reach farther than they should—

From the shard of glass between your fingers
The colors of another world,
Of a time when you were happy
That could not have existed
Without casting aside the world before it,
The other lenses in your pocket.

The shaft of light that filters here
Is only wide enough for one
And to cast these pearly memory stones
The active part of that place and time
Must be consecrated as finished and done—
The cost of new experience
the loss of a previous one,
Life’s exclusive velvet table
With rules for every hand
Where time attached to one bright chip
Can not engage another.

Treat them gently,
Or draw what you see
With feverish intensity;
One harsh clash by will or miss
And all the glass will shatter down
To shuffled colors on the floor,
Senseless even when adored.