In the wheel of Earth’s years
we watch as Autumn’s clock
Tick-tocks in tiny goldenrod
September petal’d seconds
Frosty trees bleed scarlet hours
through veins of October leaves
Amber minutes wither and fall
drifting in November’s breeze
And the silent strike of midwinter
turns December’s snowflake gears
minutes bloom
hours flower
seconds vine
through the hands
of time —
days hustle
weeks speed
decades scatter
in confetti’d years
The moon is always
running away from me
as if she thinks that time
is just a cyclical game
of hide & seek —
She runs and runs
then keeps on running
leaving me to the mystery
of why the nights run short
and the days even shorter
Please, Moon —
just for one night
can’t you sit still
and stay a while
We can have
a midnight tea —
just you and me
we’ll talk all night
and bask in the glow
of your regal beauty
Aging is millions of moments
stacked upon tumbling years
there is no timetable for grieving —
grief is a snail
it’s a shooting star
a walk around the lake
it’s eternity
or frost till bloom —
memories coursing through the heart
it lasts as many heartbeats as it takes —
sometimes all of them.
Time doesn’t tick
it doesn’t tock —
it flows relentless
it is we who chop
its water with our oars
“Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am
—Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Dear Yesterday,
You begged to talk with me
but I am too busy with Today —
maybe we can catch up later —
if Tomorrow doesn’t treat me well
I will call to cry on your shoulder.
Time pours his guests a cup of tea but the party is over before we know it.
Don’t let the past steal your present.
There was time —
I know there was —
saw it spread out
all ahead of me,
a beautiful infinity —
immortal fresh-faced
clock of opportunity —
numberless, handless
no ticks & no tocks
save for the sound
of distant decades
too quiet to really hear —
but at forty-eight years
a sudden gear-grinding
cacophony, the outspread
blanket of eternity
has begun to suffocate,
wrapped around me
limiting my agility
darkening my path —
I’m having trouble
breathing, I no longer
see that clock open
or free, its movements
now deafen me, its hands
tear into my flesh and
grip tight my throat —
I am choking on
second thoughts
at this midlife hour
this day of reckoning
The past can’t see you, but the future is listening.
Three A.M. is when
all the quiet things
become loud —
the drip in the sink,
that clock on the wall,
our hearts, our minds.