Spilling the days no memory will restore,
time's fountain climbs its own perpetual core.
The edges are ragged, all tattered and torn,
with the sepia tones of yester year
washing over the faded scene.
The summers and winter have slowly passed
leaving memories of a love once lost,
captured in the inscription, though short and sweet,
scrawled in a tattered corner.
The ink, slowly fading, almost non-existent,
'with love to thee Bessy,
you have stolen my heart'.
Only the faded picture holds the key.
A bridge, over water.
A brook?.....maybe a stream?
Surrounded by flowers - their colour, unknown.
This bridge, this place, has meaning.
A vision of butterflies flashes in the back of her mind,
She can feel the cool breeze of a spring day.
Is it the day she met this man?
But her memory.....
She knows it has some significance,
Something to unlock her past.
The back is bare.
No stamp. No indication of where it might be from.
Where the place may be, what the year is.
Nothing.
1915 - but why that year does she think of?
Men in uniform march the streets -
but what significance is this to her?
There is something about the bridge...
The times she has looked at it,
stared at the inscription,
hours on end, but nothing.
The card is 'well worn'
like a good book that has been read many times.
But still nothing.
It is placed back in the drawer,
gently, with obvious care,
as if it has some sentimental meaning
she is unaware of.
'Better left until another day'.
The drawer closes with a 'click'.
and the past is left to lie.
c. 1999
