petit cahier d'un retour

we travel in hope and journeying have dreams
of seeing once again the places of our youth
and everything is different yet it seems
that everything retains a basic truth

places have meaning but do not signify
all the things that we would want to mean
the eyes of youth and childhood magnify
but adult eyes are duller yet more keen

to see the things that once did loom so large
reduced at last to a more human scale
the river flows carrying ship and barge
the human weight that seems too strong to fail

all this to say that though the road be long
the heart responds to it and gives out song