After a Trip

You look at your pictures back home from a trip
And somehow it doesn’t quite seem
You really were there, with that smile on your face –
You’d swear it was only a dream.

Yet there is the proof, in each pose you peruse –
The scenery gorgeous and clear.
The photos are tip of the iceberg, somehow –
The same goes for each souvenir.

You cannot recapture the way that you felt –
Sensations each sight did provoke;
Vacations, like dreams, are quite real when you’re there
But returning, they vanish like smoke.

You print up the pictures or fashion a book
And do all you can do to remember;
Each image, like fire, though, once so intense,
In the end fades away to an ember.