Gordon Nightingale
Old friends of long ago,
Those old school friends that you used to know.
Now distant memories hidden in shadows of time,
Surfacing occasionally to some mystical chime.
At school I had a lot of friends.
We played together in the yard.
We’d hang out on the weekends;
Keeping friends was never hard.
Come graduation all that changed,
Each one on their own career quest,
Though we’d sometimes meet at weekends,
Saw the school friends less and less.
At work one gathered new friends
And moved in a different direction,
New friends, new acquaintances;
And then on past reflection,
You began to realise your school friends
Have been consigned to history.
Where they went and what happened?
Is now a mystery.
Changing to a new job
And a move to another state,
Friends made at the last job
No longer seem to rate.
They swore to keep in touch,
And for that matter so did I,
Our everlasting friendship
We said would never die.
But time stands still for no man,
The steady march of years,
Sees those friendships drift apart
And no-one shed any tears.
New situations, new friends,
Simply supersede the old.
With old friends losing contact,
New friends are added to the fold.
People in and out my life
With the changing of the season;
No excuses, no regrets,
No need to find a reason.
We reminisce with new friends
About the times of old,
Remembering the old friends
When we were young and bold.
Gordon Nightingale is a local author and poet and the convenor of the Daylesford U3A Writers’ Circle.
