I always say that I let it slip away.

But that's not really true.

Because unfortunately,
To have let something slip away.

Means I would have had it in my grasp to begin with.

thirty years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity

the letter I never sent
the words you never said
the way I never felt
the chance you never took
how much of a difference would these things have made
maybe we'd be hiking that trail in Maine we always dreamt about
I bet we'd be taking that old van to the coast every weekend
and making love the way we did in that first year
but things don't always turn out  the way we intend them to
now were on opposite sides of the country
looking up at the same moon
and thinking about the same thing
we thought we were soul mates
maybe we really are
perhaps we just made the wrong choice somewhere along the way
but its too late now
I’m wrapped in someone else’s arms
and you’ve found love in another girl
the most I can hope for is to bump into you
probably in that old cafe across town that we loved
I dream that you hope for the same thing