present

August 10, 2017

TEMPUS FUGIT

The problem with bringing then
into now is that now slips away
and then no longer really exists.
You may wish all you like for summer
to remain, but Autumn demands her due
and even the leaves grow tired
and need that final rest.
Do not deny the clouds, but treat them
like a stray thought, let them
be present, and let them leave
and take what they offer
without complaint, for they
are fragile and will flee
like the kitten, and you
will never be able to coax
a return until they are ready.
Now, where were you?

July 13, 2017

EVENT UALLY

A week from this
Thursday something will
happen that no one could
have ever foreseen.
This is the beauty
and the horror, at once,
of our limited vision,
afraid to see the present
although it is all
that is clearly within
our visual field.
Instead we look back
into the shadows
where memory substitutes
for clarity and truth,
or forward
into the abyss.

June 20, 2017

TIMING IS . . .

 

The sweep of the second-hand,
the minute hand is constant, each
moment as long as the last, none
longer, none shorter and yet I know
that Einstein was right in noting that
things unpleasant take forever, while
all that is joyful passes quickly
even when the elapsed time is the same.
What Albert didn’t say is that
the unpleasant leads us to look
for the future, keeping us
locked longer in the present moment.
That which is pleasant keeps us present
and the future seems to come
too quickly, the pleasure slipping away.
It is, in the end, merely perception
and I prefer to remain in the present
for it is all that I have, and
all that I choose to make it.

April 1, 2017

TRUE MEASURE

If you ask me
the true measure
of a passing moment,
I will tell you
it is at once invaluable,
and by equal measure
useless, lost in the detritus
of time’s wave, now receded.
Do not try and cling to it
for your memory is
all that is impermeable,
and then only
in a moment already
carried off by yet
another ebbing
wave of time.