NOVEMBER AWAKENING

(Written to close a friendship, finally, lasting almost 80 years.)

No longer may I call her friend---
she’s just someone I used to know
since we were children long ago,
before our journey reached an end.
What breach of conduct came about
to cause the parting of our ways?
The incidentals form a haze---
but her dismissal leaves no doubt.

How could I fool myself so long,
now that I feel our true selves chafe?
But miles between us kept us safe,
til who I thought she was proved wrong.

I do not rue the scores of years
I treasured words she did not write.
(I understood her world and plight.)
Now disillusion sheds no tears,
for time and tide continue on;
we live and learn and lose sometimes;
we frame our wisdom into rhymes---
and naught is really, truly gone.

-- Helen Ewoldsen -- 11-04