Measuring the march of time's footsteps

Twenty-five years ago: city lights from a viewpoint

Is it really 25 years since we lived and studied together beneath blue skies and crimson and mauve sunsets?

Is it a quarter of a century since we shared those concrete sidewalks, bus journeys to college, visits to the beach, to hangouts, and to viewpoints overlooking the twinkling lights of a city sprawled across two valleys?

Twenty-five summers have come and gone, and 25 autumns, winters and springs, since our tight-knit group, transplanted to a foreign land, shared a bond that would stay with us for ever.

Though we have gone our separate ways, and not all of us are here today, those sweetest days live on in our thoughts. And in the memory of the world, for I am sure it has such.

Time passes, yes. But stretched across 25 years, the march of its footsteps are so far apart we do not always hear them until we stop and listen.

A plane soars, its tail fin livery redesigned from a quarter of a century ago, like all the others; generational changes an echo of time's deep footsteps.

And so, 25 summers, autumns, winters and springs have passed.

Who would not yearn to do it all again? But to have done it once is a treasure indeed.