Freiends Become Strangers poem by Dyfed Lloyd Evans

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Friends Become Strangers

by Dyfed Lloyd Evans
An accidental meeting, someone I knew well
a thousand years before. The ‘Hey you —
how are you doings?’ of formulaic greetings
Stilted awkward gestures. Meanings
lost in words that once had been the ease
of freely-flowing conversation. The thought —
I know this face, but do not know this person,
Anymore.
Commonality become a gulf
A chasm opened in tectonic shiftings
of our lives; induced by time
In which we re-made ourselves
anew. I look at you and know you not —
Cheap promises to keep-in-touch
exchanged. Easy quips that we shall both
forget; once more our backs are turned.
Unknown one unto the other.
Friends become strangers.






This poem came about because of two chance meetings with people who had once been friends — the first in a tube station in London and the second, bizarrely in a sushi restaurant in California. Both these chance meetings brought home to me how fragile our interactions with other people can be and how friendships need to be worked on and nurtured. Even then, we change as we age and sometimes those canges can become an insurmountable gulf between people.

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