i went for a walk today and as i went (original)

i went for a walk today and as i went
by a path so familiar, i paused blusteringly content
to lift my hat and warmly wave to a far away friend.
when this i did, came exhaling a frostily wind…
brushing my face with lightning strokes to bestow
a memory long since sealed thirty years ago…

it was only then and not before only then
i thought of that day quite identical to when
i went for a walk as a young man then and
lifted my hat, extending high my hand
just to nighly wave to a friend i espied
standing small over the great distance affined…

it was not the memory of the familiar then,
which made me feel today so strange to lift my hat;
rather, it was the factual me of yesteryear that
appeared so utterly, so recognizably, wholly avowed.
like the long lost twin of the me of the now,
the wind brought fresh the smell of the then…

i went for a walk today and as i went
by a path so familiar, i discovered blissfully content
that the who i was feels no different than the who i became.
i suspect most people safe harbor these uncommon familiarities,
anchored trenchant in the deepest, deep of our profundities,
reminding us we are and always will be the very same…