Yesterday I was four years old
in a light blue dress with roses
with bangs that brushed the top of my eyelashes,
playing with a girl with blonde hair and pigtails,
laughing with unabandoned joy- she was a fountain
that I drank from.
Her laugh, her happiness,
was a bottomless well, or so I recall-
but that was yesterday.

Today, I am eighteen, sitting on her bed and
listening to her sing.
Oh, how one day can change so much!
Her face has become angular,
chest swollen with womanhood-
and her eyes...
time and pain and
love lost and
love gained
has changed them.

Her laugh is a spring now,
it has dried up.
Pain, that drought that nature inflicts upon us,
has attacked that bottomless well.
But when she does laugh, I am reminded
of all the yesterdays
that we have had,
and it makes me wish that time
would freeze
on today,
because I do not know what tomorrow brings.

I can see yesterday in my minds eye,
when I first laid down into her hands
my trust, my love.
I was shy, and so afraid,
but she took my hands and promised me
that she would never drop my heart,
discard my love, or break my fragile trust.

She is my rock, my foundation,
her radiance warms me;
and the thing that makes her so beautiful
is that she needs
and I need to be needed.

Time has watered that seed,
sprouted roots,
and has grown into the tree
I see today.
My hand is soft against its solid trunk,
fruits of memory
hang down from the branches, and I
savor each bite I take.
I collect them in my basket, and leave
through the gate into tomorrow.