The Past Is A Thought Away Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The past is a thought.

The coastal fishing town in Peru was charming
its upland was bare and light brown, with roads
looking like scars caused by a triple Bye-Pass.
The sky was enormous, the biggest ever seen
but was unmotivated, not a cloud around.
Teresa is a short, lovely woman in well-filled jeans.
Ah, jeans, one wishes for the skirt's reappearance.
We hired a car and drove up the bare hills.
The driest of landscapes weighted down by dust
Tiny villages, four houses and a cantina, not a place
for the young, Lima was their dream.
At the top of a hill, we stopped, and afar the Pacific
glittering green living up to its name.
We were in love, the transient kind disappearing
in the morning light; told each other lies and enjoyed
the sweetness of dreams.
We drove back before darkness, the road narrow.
Teresa worked at night, with many trawlers docking.
A stolen moment by two people whose youth had
passed us by, but we remember how sweet it was.