WASTED YEARS

    Twenty wasted years (but what
        would it mean to have gained them?)
        Fernando Pessoa



All of us have some wasted years
sometimes three, sometimes seven, sometimes more
but twenty makes a nice circle
we can hark back to the past around it
without the panic that comes
with the wasted years of an entire life.
Besides, what would it mean to have gained
twenty years that shift about
each time I look back?
Steady progress according to plan
constant productivity, increased yield
recognition at the right time and appropriate honours.
Well then, twenty futile, wasted years
that provided opportunities
for dreamed-of lives full of possibilities
that were never realized,
for enjoyment gained from identification
with people who I was never to become,
for delight and guilt at the never-ending
adjustment of goals,
for unreserved acceptances,
for frightened rejections.
Twenty wasted years
are always necessary
for an ambitious present.

WASTED YEARS