Graduations Are like Stepping Through

By Turlough O'Carolan


Graduations are like stepping through
A veil into another, larger room.
Behind, where we can never go again,
Are memories like a shipwreck full of gold.

Strange, the harmonies of pride and sadness,
The dawn and sunset of the new and old,
The bittersweet good-byes while looking forward
To things unseen beyond the ridge of time.

Numb with too much life we stagger through them,
Time passing in the ordinary way.
Relatives and friends all swarm around us,
Buzzing round the silence of the real.

And once the ceremonies and the parties
Are over, and the sweet days come and go,
All we've lost comes back to us as music
Of love departed, never to return.