Time

Time

Time has been the hand at my back pushing me
to step a little more lively throughout the seasons
and jog this year into the next.
I wonder must I sprint the final steps up to the finish line?
My Simon and Garfunkel “feelin’ groovy” philosophy
has been archived with the flowers and the lampposts
and the LP’s I haven’t had time to upgrade.

Hobbies I used to enjoy have begun to bicker for attention
like a house full of siblings egged on by the sly pinch of time.
I shove the poetry aside to knit for the new grand niece,
jostle the knitting to make room for Christmas projects
playing peek–a-boo around the corner,
and take note that music, always sticky fingered at my shirttail,
is now shouting tunes in an attempt to drown the others out.

I don’t really like white water rafting, roller coasters, jet planes,
or fast downhill sledding.
However, I have mercifully still pictures of me engaged in all of them.
I don’t like whirlwind romances in Harlequin form or real life.
Who then, is this inordinate mistress Time
who steals away the passionate lengthy interludes I desire
and leaves my heart gasping with yet another quickie?

Always a breakneck pace to get the house chores done
so I can squeeze in the time for a pleasurable blink
before an obligation beckons.
The good blurs past my vision in the rush to leave the bad behind.
“Laugh now, cry when there’s time.”
Why now the relentless litanies of see, do, feel, make, fix, and change?
Why now the rapacious needs to say, live, give, and remember it all?

This autumn.  It is the autumn of my existence.
This autumn holds my parent’s winter and releases my son’s spring.
How much time is left to see clouds back-dropped in lightning glow
and nod back at the secret faces in September’s sunflowers?
How much time to sit out on the deck drinking dandelion wine
and idly ruffle the dog’s fur as he leans warm against my side?
How much time would be enough to be amazed at star-sown skies?

In that celestial lottery of guardian angels
I fear I have drawn a nimble, lissome spirit.
He would have me dash instead of dawdle,
dart and scurry with a slapdash and skedaddle.
Where is my ice-cream-eating, remote-control-wielding cherub
who would wile away the seasons in idle dilly-dally
while I lazed, loitered, and lackadaisically loafed?

And yet, when I have reached the eleventh hour of my course,
and am surrounded by those for whom
the minutes of the clock are interminable
and the slow game shows fade to fade a life line;
will I then sit wide-eyed and braced as if for take-off?
Will I know that my film has all been used; my memory card is full,
and the life that flashes before my eyes is but an instant in forever?