"Time Passages" is the title of a 1978 Top Ten hit by singer Al Stewart which was the title track for Stewart's 1978 album release, produced by Alan Parsons. Reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1978^[3], "Time Passages" also spent ten weeks at #1 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, the longest stay at number one on this chart in the 1970s.^[4] A radio edit of the song was often played instead of the album version, which is over six minutes long; however, both versions were heard over the airwaves during the late 1970s. The familiar final line to the chorus is, "Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight". Less lyrically complex than a typical Al Stewart composition - the singer's previous Top Ten hit "Year of the Cat" exemplifying his usual style - "Time Passages" was one of two songs on the Time Passages album written by Stewart with the intent of the tracks having hit single potential, the other being "Song on the Radio" which was the followup single and reached #29.

source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Passages_%28song%29

Time Passages

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don't know why you should feel
That there's something to learn
It's just a game that you play

Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone, in these
Time passages
I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

-- song written by Al Stewart

"every once in a while..."

every once in a while
remembrance of things past sneak up
the inner core & the outer eye
come into play
as the sun eludes
in the shortness of a winter's day
moving into night as memory's fog
lifts revealing a lost stage
of a forgotten place & age

as for going home
isn't that more dream than real?
all's in flux everything changes
everything's temporary
the last train's at the station
no one waits to see you off
or receive you with loving arms
when you get to wherever
you think you're going to

if life teaches anything
its that the human capacity
for self-deception
has no limits
we do the best we can
so often falling short
of our own expectations

the faces of old lovers
emerge from the mist
then suddenly dissolve
which one was the right one?
what path the best?
where did a certain happiness lurk
just waiting for you?

was it ever really there?
is the best you can ever hope for
a silent wizened contentment?

-- GP aka JSW