Nostalgia is a good thing, they say.

 

That favorite dress you wore to every party

The fight over the TV remote with your sibling

The holiday shopping and gift wrapping

That extra pocket money for all the ice cream.

 

Holding hands to cross the street

Sulking when denied that special treat

Looking out of the window to catch the taxi turning the bend

That had in it, people you loved.

 

Brown covers on school notebooks

White ‘keds’ for PT class

Running around in circles till our heads spun

Are now all things of the past.

 

The big courtyard with the mango tree

And clothes hanging on the lines

Faces I can no longer touch

All remain in my memory, immune to the tricks of time.

 

The sound of the ice cream man on sultry afternoons

The sudden ‘load shedding’

That unexpected guest and unbridled giggles

Are now sacred pages in my memory pocket book.

 

Pretty little smiles fill up the present

Dreams abound

Wheels of time spin faster than before

As I rush to hold on.

 

Scattered across the memory

Are glimmers of a time a gone by

Nostalgia peeks from corners

As my soul dances to the tinkling rhythms of the past.