This poem struck me because it touches on two things I've thought about high school:
1. Those days so far removed from the person I am now that they may as well have occurred in the Mesozoic Era.
2. There are white-hot memories I can call up in a matter of seconds.
Life, it seems, is a series of eras, periods, and ages that are constantly shifting, rearranging, being integrated, and viewed anew.
This is such a good poem, and the final line is a killer.
Written on the eve of my 20th high school reunion,
which I was not able to attend
by A.E. Stallings
For the Briarcliff High School class of 1986
Just what I needed,
Just when the dreams had almost totally receded,
The dreams of roles for which I learned no lines and knew no cues,
Dreams of pop quizzes with no pants on and no shoes,
Just when I understood I was no longer among
Those ephemeral immortals, the gauche and pitiable young,
Suddenly come phone calls, messages sift out of the air
To ask who will be there:
Names I haven't given a thought to in a score
(A score!) of years, and names I used to think about but don't much anymore,
And those I think of all the time and yet
Have lost somehow like keys to doors I've closed, and some I have tried to forget—
by A.E. Stallings
For the Briarcliff High School class of 1986
Just what I needed,
Just when the dreams had almost totally receded,
The dreams of roles for which I learned no lines and knew no cues,
Dreams of pop quizzes with no pants on and no shoes,
Just when I understood I was no longer among
Those ephemeral immortals, the gauche and pitiable young,
Suddenly come phone calls, messages sift out of the air
To ask who will be there:
Names I haven't given a thought to in a score
(A score!) of years, and names I used to think about but don't much anymore,
And those I think of all the time and yet
Have lost somehow like keys to doors I've closed, and some I have tried to forget—
....
Photo courtesy of elizabethaferry at Pixabay.
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