can you still remember? the vision of tomorrow we once shared? the conviction of isometric triumph? is there any inkling left? do you ever see it glisten in the dark? the trace of what stood before? like a bluestone mirage cast down upon a town wishing well by moonlight, rippling above wet chlorine and 5-cent dreams? does it ever find you in waves of incidental tenderness? in the crinkle of an auburn leaf pressed underfoot, or in the sweet hum of a diesel engine arrested by traffic? or in the smell of some sweltering supermarket parking lot punctured by unscheduled rain? or in the niggling touch of a woollen jumper that sends your finger-tips electric? this memory. is it what it is? a vestige of yesterday? or have we become so adept at imagining imagination? left to our own devices, are our minds now jaded looms? weaving some kind of newfangled nostalgia out of old loose ends? we were somnambulants, automatons, transversing the arc of progress in pilot mode, suspended by blind faith and piecemeal purpose. only to awaken in metamorphosis. reluctant disciples of the past. butterflies who yearn to be caterpillars who yearn to be butterflies.