Upon Reading Letters from Younger Days

What words are used to describe the thoughts that no longer come,
Ideas of a prior life that once was brimming with angst and some
Ideals chased for the sake of love and beauty.
Now the same things trend towards duty
Of commitment and relationship, career,
Tending home, animals, finances, debts in arrears,
Promises replaced by practicalities,
Hopes supplanted by fears,
Balance subtracted by the same things that gave life instead.
What I ponder and somehow dread,
That memories chase me like ghosts,
Same fears that act as hosts
For what captures hopes and turns the scene
About what life can mean
When “settling down” means more than settling
And “taking stock” means more than stock taking.
Here it goes, as will suffice,
A soundtrack earned at great price
Of melody swift through dreams
Risen like phoenix from youth, seems
So far away to the extent reachable,
Today unthinkable,
Tomorrow even further from the march
Of time immemorial, away from harsh
Frame of what inspired these words anyway -
Letters from younger days packed away.

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