the collapsible lens

When I was young 
I don't think I knew
how happy I was
- and I was right. 
I wasn't. It's just 
the collapsible lens
of time picks up 
and magnifies 
every idiot gleam 
of fun and love
that could never
prove false. I loved
those, then, and I love
them still. Of course 
I do. Meanwhile each
equally idiot glare of panic
and trouble, confusion 
I couldn't see how 
would turn out, or how 
to get through, is lost.
Proved false. Proved 
no big deal, and gone 
now as if they never 
were.

But of course in the living,
each moment, they were.
They bloomed all around 
and into the future, I guessed,
not seeing the end of each - making
me then really and truly miserable.

When people say "I wish I knew
then what I know now," I don't think
they mean how, really, to make things
turn out. I think they just mean knowing
which things somehow all really would.
Turn out. So then if they only knew,
they could fully enjoy the half
of their idiocy that they'll cherish
and keep - the proven big deal - not
noticing or sweating so much 

the half that fades unnoticed
at the time to vanished, making 
the past seem sweet.