Black spots fly like tiny insects

Black lines appear like bits of thread

Sudden light flashes at the edges

Blurred grayness where once were words

So approaches this looming blindness

And yet

Now I see more clearly

A path never before discerned

My step seems to falter

Make no mistake

My eyes might be clouded

I know where I am and where I am going

I go quickly quickly

What’s past is past.

I disagree.

The past is as amorphous and fluid as the present.

Both change and flow,

Each influencing the other in a Heraclitean interplay.

An example:

As a child I was abandoned in a strange city,

Though I found my own way home.

This event left a mark,

Resulting in me feeling bewildered, unwanted, and forlorn.

Years later, a relative told me something

That transformed what I remembered.

Did that trip change down the years?

For me, yes.

Another example:

A dictator and tyrant acted in ways

We heretofore considered evil.

Today some leaders look back in admiration

Seemingly in order to emulate his results.

Have his actions changed in character?

For an unsettling minority, yes.

We find ourselves living in a strange loop,

Where parallels and paradoxes abound.

We cry sorrow; we cry good;

We fly to the light; we descend to the dark.

Inexorably we find these

To be one, different, and the same.

I drink a cup of tea and laugh at all.

But sometimes I cry.