The Die We've Cast

A friend you meet in middle age
Of course has his own history
Which possibly will stay imbued
With some degree of mystery.

We form our judgments from the facts
We have in our possession
And how a person looks and acts
Determines our impression.

But sometimes we may get a glimpse
Of someone’s early years
And discover that he once was not
The way he now appears.

For age and illness take their tolls
On all of us, and yet,
Within us still exists that self
New friends have never met.

A photo or a story somehow
Conjured from the past
Makes us realize that there’s so much more
Beneath the die we’ve cast.