To think about those I've known,
As time has passed, and I've grown,
Reveals a joyous sorrow;
Yesterday's not tomorrow.

From a life lived long ago
Anecdotes are kept to show
Who it was, that I called me:
A record of identity.

Delicate, each bend and bow
Hardly spry enough to know,
Memory weaves another
Beneath a conscious cover.

Characters who smile and play,
Those, our friends, we wish would stay
Gently slip from daily thought;
To pictures and dreams they're brought.

Though a part of what I've become,
I am not the only one;
Still the characters do act,
Hidden in omnicient tact.

Yet by chance, or perhaps not,
The past, as if it forgot,
Weaves the same pattern of old
Letting stories be retold.