Developments

Each year, during the soft gear-shift
Between late summer and early autumn,
A member of the briefly sun-tanned millions,
You download all your snaps, and cannot wait
To view them, avid for the truth
Of what they will reveal, or fail to show:

A myriad of foreign restaurant tables,
Shining faces grinning at the flash,
Dishes of exotic food, carafes of wine,
Colourful drinks, like trophies, waved aloft;
Sunsets, mountains, ruins, glass-blue sea,
Smiling loved ones posing on a wall;
Markets, fishing-boats, locals with no teeth,
Their faces satisfyingly gnarled.
Yes, that's it! That's just the way it was!

But secretly, you know it isn't so.
It never can be just the way it was -
The time has changed and you're no longer there.
The images speak to us of other lives
And places that we visited like Marley's ghost,
Seen and heard, but not touching.
And when we're back, and getting on with
Unremitting, unsurprising life,
They let us know that we were, once, elsewhere.
This thought can cheer and comfort, but beware,
Lest it should taunt and crush your heart with grief