The time traveller's lament

When we make our journeys back to the past
it always turns out a far different place
from what we remember; it's never good to trace
just where the lure falls that we once cast
into the stream of life, such things don't last.
Instead, we're compelled to stand with open face,
eyes narrowed, vision focused on infinite space
but knowing that such postures do not last.
Were we to travel forward, to the imagined time
when all will be as once in youth we wished,
we'd find ourselves, in the end, able to moan
that it was not as we wished in our prime;
the waters are not clear, the river's overfished
and there's nowhere left to be silent and alone.