We have all been assured that the older we get the wiser we get, but I’m not so sure. The only thing of which I am completely certain is that the days go slow but the years go fast. And not just fast, but a whirlwind of flashing scenes and faces when looking back down the dark rimmed corridor of time. Wasn’t it only yesterday I asked that pretty little girl to the prom? Why do I remember my first pair of roller skates? My first bike? How is it I remember the names and faces of everyone in my eighth grade class? I think I know the answers. It’s because memory works in fast years, so they didn’t happen all that long ago. When counted in slow days they happened sometime around the Permian, but that’s in slow days. In memory it all happened yesterday.

The days go slow, but the years go fast

We sit beside the roadside

And watch our days on earth go past

Denying it’s an ebb tide

Till much too late we chance upon

The notion that we’re mortal

And soon we’ll board that great white swan

And pass through heaven’s portal

We dream at length of golden things

But know they’re not for keeping

We know the tears that sorrow brings

And know how joy comes leaping

We watch our children skip and play

And prize the things we taught ‘em

Till one sad day they go away

Like falling leaves in Autumn

That’s not to say that we’re alone

In looking back in sorrow

At things for which we can’t atone

At least not til tomorrow