Ink Stains

Browning paper browns some,
Ink gathers, spreads, dances
And settles there for eternity.
The brilliance of those days
The darkness of those other days.
Blobs of ink spread
Reminiscent of imes
When you refused to understand.
Darker stains ententrench themselves
Impossible to erase...
Ah! if only you'd been more sensitive.

I try to blot the ink
Out of my life.
But they've already stained the paper
Coloured it dark, light and hurtful
To blacken the browning paper;
Worse, they show through the new pages,
Inerasable and unsuppressible.

I'll come to terms with them,
(Stains, Pieces of china, outgrown shoes,
They're all there.)
Some day, when many more pages
Have turned.